


DarkAngel and Cherub

by Narsil



Category: HERO Champions, HERO Dark Champions, Ranma 1/2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 62,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narsil/pseuds/Narsil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When things go badly wrong in Nerima, Genma and Ranma travel to the United States to visit an old friend. Set in the Hero Games Champions universe, rated for violence and themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Birth of a Hero

Steve Dansville sighed with relief as the business meeting broke up, then glanced over at his co-worker with carefully hidden worry as they took the elevator down to the office building’s lobby. “Hey, Stacy, how’d you like a night on the town?” he asked. Ignoring the beautiful 5’9” short-haired blonde’s slight wince, he continued, “Not a date, nothing romantic, just see some of the tourist spots — not much point in visiting Tokyo if you don’t take in the sights.”

With a forced smile, Stacy shook her head. “Thanks, Steve, I appreciate it, but I’m afraid I don’t feel in a touristy mood tonight. We’ve got a few months, I’ll catch the sights later. I think I’ll just take a walk in the park, and then go for a hot bath with a good book.”

“Sure, Stacy, that’s fine — enjoy your book, we’ll go touring later.” With a smile and a wave, the brown-haired 6’ muscular man turned toward their hotel, only letting the smile vanish, replaced by a concerned look, when Stacy couldn’t see it. _Poor Stacy. I know you can’t expect a rape victim to bounce back overnight, but this is bad — though at least she was mostly able to hide her panic attack during the meeting. Maybe if we’d never been lovers — At least this trip gets her out of Hudson City for awhile, maybe that’ll help bring back the fun-loving free spirit I knew before._

/oOo\

Stacy sighed as she crossed the street and wandered into the park, her smile turning sad now that she was away from her co-worker. _Poor Steve, he worries so much — amazing how that fling in college turned into such a great friend. It’s really too bad that I just couldn’t seem to feel the way he wanted, even if he’s engaged now, the nights we shared were certainly lively._

Unbidden, a memory of one of those happy times flashed into her mind, only to have the smiling face of her best friend morph into the grinning, unshaven face of a teenaged predator, as she felt the prick of the knife at her throat as he thrust into her — Gasping for breath, Stacy broke into a blind run into the park.

A few minutes later, Stacy fought herself back under control, her trembling fading away, the tightness in her chest easing off, her breathing slowing back down to normal. Looking around and not seeing any park benches in the small clearing she found herself at the edge of, the blonde backed away from the clearing for a few feet, sat down on the grass, and leaned back against a tree. Staring off into space, she fought to hold back the tears but only succeeded in reducing them to a slow trickle. _Dammit! Not even — I_ need _those memories of the good times! How do I get through this without even that to help?_

As she fought to bring her tears under control, Stacy slowly became aware of sounds coming from the clearing she’d backed out of however long ago. Dully curious, she got up and walked forward, only to freeze in amazement at the sight before her.

In the clearing, a stout older man in a dirty gi with a scarf tied over his balding head was sparring with a young gi-clad boy, long black hair pulled back in a low pony-tail — if sparring included bouncing around the clearing like balls in a pinball game. With wide eyes, she stared as the boy flipped over a flying kick to deliver a punch to the back the older man’s head.

{Hey, I gotcha, Pop, yer gettin’ slow!} the boy crowed in a rather uncouth version of Japanese, and the man rolled and bounced to his feet with a laugh.

{Good shot, boy, let’s see if you can do it again!}

For the next half-hour, Stacy simply sat at the edge of the clearing and watched the two spar, feeling hope flicker awake for the first time in months.

/oOo\

Eventually, the two broke off when the boy finally got a kick through to his father’s back, and the balding man swept up his son in a hug as he laughed. {Good for you, Ranma,} he shouted, {you may actually make a true martial artist yet!}

As the man spun his son around, Stacy slowly stood up and, trembling slightly, walked into the clearing. As the man set down his son and turned toward her, she bowed politely. {Please forgive me for interrupting,} she said in the near-fluent Japanese she’d learned in college and practiced since arriving in Tokyo. {I am Hunter Stacy, an American here on business. I’ve been watching you for the last half hour.}

The stout man returned the bow. {Saotome Genma, and yes, I knew you were watching. Did you enjoy the show?}

{Yes, I did, I’ve never seen anything like it,} Stacy said. {I am sure this is an impertinence, but can you teach me how to fight like that?}

Genma frowned. {Women should not have to fight,} he said sternly. {It is the responsibility of men to protect them.}

 _No, he can’t ... !_ Stacy’s mind raced, and after a brief hesitation she responded, {That may be true, but women should know how to fight because men will not always able to fulfill their responsibilities, or even be around. No man was there to protect me the night I was ... was attacked. If not for a passing car ...} Her voice quavered as she broke off and fought for control, and Saotome stiffened.

Frowning thoughtfully, he stared at his petitioner for several minutes, then asked, {How long are you going to be here on business? And how much time will you be able to devote to the training? I have been training little Ranma, here, on a daily basis for almost a decade. A few hours a day for a few weeks won’t help you much.}

Fighting to keep a triumphant smile off her face, she thought over her itinerary, then said, {My business here in Tokyo will take a few months, and I’ll need at least eight hours a day on weekdays to meet my responsibilities to my employer. Beyond that, I will devote however many hours you are willing to train me. And after my business is concluded, I have some vacation time coming ... another month before I will need to return to America that I can train full-time.}

Genma raised an eyebrow, then nodded. {You have a cell phone?} he asked.

{Of course,} Stacy answered with a confused look.

{Of course,} Genma repeated wryly. {Good, you will need it. You will check out of your hotel room, buy a tent and a sleeping bag, and join me and Ranma here in the park for the rest of your stay in Tokyo.}

{I will need to look presentable so as not to disgrace my employer,} Stacy protested, but Saotome waved off the objection.

{There is an all-night bath house nearby. It’s unisex, mostly caters to salarymen during the day, but some tourists and office girls use it as well. It should meet your needs, and will cost less than your hotel room. That is, if you truly wish for me to train you.}

{Yes! Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you!} the blonde woman almost shouted. {I’ll buy the tent and sleeping bag, check out of my hotel room, and be back here as soon as I can.}

With a deep bow to her new sensei, she looked around quickly, saw the office building she’d spent the day in over the trees to her left, oriented on her hotel, and almost ran off while pulling out her cell phone and hitting the speed dial. “Steve? Stacy here. Sorry to disturb your fun, but I’m going to need your help with some unexpected shopping.” ... “Because you’re the Eagle Scout.” ... “Yes, I know that sounds crazy, you aren’t going to believe this, but ...”

/oOo\

Several hours later, Stacy walked back into the empty clearing, huffing slightly under the weight of a backpack filled with a tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear and food, plus several changes of clothes.

Looking around fearfully, she caught sight of a white gash on a tree on the edge of the clearing. On walking over to the tree, she realized the white gash was an arrow cut into the trunk, pointing off to the left. With a sigh of relief, she followed the arrow, walking into the little grove of trees until she encountered another small clearing where she found Genma and Ranma Saotome cooking a meal over a small fire.

Genma looked up with a slight smile of greeting as Stacy walked into the clearing, and then chuckled when she fell to her hands and knees, thanks to the way her polite bow overbalanced her. {I see I have my work cut out for me,} he said.

Stacy blushed. {I will do my best to be an exemplary student, Sensei,} she responded humbly, and Genma nodded approvingly.

{I am sure you will, or I wouldn’t have accepted you. Now, hurry up and eat, and we will get to your first lesson.}

An hour later, a confused Stacy sighed and looked over at her new sensei from where she sat in a meditative pose. {Sensei, I will follow your instructions to the letter, but why are we starting with meditation?}

{For several reasons,} Genma responded lightly. {Normally, I would require you to figure it out yourself, but since as an American you lack the basis a more usual student would have, I’ll give you an answer — just this once.

{First, don’t think I didn’t notice how nervous you were when I got close to you. I won’t ask the details of what your attackers did, but it obviously left you afraid of men. You need to learn to control that, or all my training will be useless to you because you will be too terrified to use it if you need to.

{Second, even with the extra month our time is very limited, and one of the things I can teach you once you’ve mastered the basics is a form of meditation that can replace sleep — mostly. You’ll still need a couple of hours a night, and at least one full night’s sleep a week, but only that if it’s needed — and it will be, if you are to prove a worthy beginner in the little time we have.}

Eyes wide, Stacy stared at her sensei, and realized that for all his lackadaisical pose he was watching her carefully. Quickly, she nodded understanding. {Very well, sensei,} she said, and resumed her meditative practice.

/oOo\

_Two weeks later:_

Stacy proudly stood in her workout clothes, and Genma walked around her, frowning thoughtfully. Finally, he nodded. {You performed the kata perfectly,} he grudgingly said. {I suppose you are ready to begin sparring.} As his student’s face lit up, he added, {But not with me. Ranma!}

Stacy’s face fell as the barely-pubescent boy (if that old) broke off his own kata and bounded across the clearing to join them.

Six hours later, a sweat-soaked, red-faced Stacy squirmed slightly as Genma carried her into the bath house she had been using the past several weeks, a grinning Ranma following with a fresh change of her clothes. {This is embarrassing,} she muttered, and Genma chuckled, his pride in his student carefully hidden.

{Give it a few weeks, and you won’t embarrass yourself by collapsing after a measly six-hour workout,} he gruffly replied as a wide-eyed attendant took their money. {Now, let’s get you cleaned up and soaking, and then a good massage will do you wonders.}

/oOo\

_Two months later:_

Stacy lay in her sleeping bag, wide awake as her mind circled the rut it had been in for the past day whenever she hadn’t been making a last run through her katas or sparring. Tomorrow she was catching a flight back to Hudson City, to the friends and job she knew so well, and tonight, what was left of it ...

As her mind once again reached the beginning of her thought, she nodded in decision. Throwing open her sleeping bag (she hadn’t zipped it up since the first night Genma had had Ranma ambush her), she rose and slipped out of her tent and over to the two figures covered with blankets nearby.

Genma stirred at her approach, and looked up. {Why aren’t you sleeping?} he asked quietly, to avoid disturbing his snoring son. {You will need to be at the bath house in only a few hours to prepare for your flight.}

Stacy nodded. {Yes, but I can sleep on the flight, there’s a better way to spend my last few hours here.} Taking a deep breath, she asked, {Genma-sama, will you join me in my tent until it’s time for me to leave?}

Genma’s eyes widened slightly, then he frowned. {There’s no need to thank me in that particular way, Stacy-chan. You were a fine student and it was a pleasure to teach you.}

{This isn’t a thank you, Genma-sama, or at least not _just_ a thank you. It’s also proof that I’m finally _me_ again — and a crowning memory of my time with a dear friend that I want to take home with me.}

Genma thought for a long moment and finally nodded as he rose from his blankets. {Very well, but not in that tent, it’s a bit too small for the both of us. Pull out your sleeping bag and lay it out on the other side, that will give us some privacy. And Stacy, call me Genma.}

Smiling brightly enough that it should have lit up the clearing, the blonde hurried to her tent.

/oOo\

_Six weeks later:_

Stacy looked around as she walked down the street where she’d been attacked all those months before. The welcome home party at her work had been magnificent, and she would always treasure the memory of the way Steve, his lovely new wife beside him, had lit up when he had seen her, had realized she was whole again if still scarred. Likewise, sinking back into the familiar routine of work and play and being able to actually enjoy both had been a balm for her soul. But through the days, there’d been one constantly recurring thought, and she’d finally resolved to act on it — not even the flu bug that had had her vomiting the last couple mornings would stop her.

So now she was back at the street where she’d been attacked. True, it was broad daylight and there were other people around, not like the night an idiot that thought it couldn’t happen to _her_ had walked down a deserted street to save a few minutes, but still, it was the place. And now, she could face it without a hint of an oncoming panic attack, she wouldn’t need to detour anymore.

Then a scream rent the air, and Stacy’s smile vanished as her head jerked up and around. Looking around ... there! A young woman struggling with a couple of even younger thugs, fighting for her purse. Then, even as Stacy charged forward, one of the punks growled something, hand reaching for his pocket, and a knife flashed and the woman’s scream cut off as her mouth gaped in surprise.

Then Stacy was there, whirling into the two thugs with moves now a second nature, they bounced off the wall, two more quick blows they couldn’t even see coming dropped them in their tracks, and Stacy caught their victim as she started to collapse, easing her to the ground, pressing one hand to the bleeding wound as her other hand reached for her cell phone.

/oOo\

Hours later, deep in thought, Stacy walked into her apartment, just returned from the hospital where the woman she’d saved was recovering from her attack. _Face it, Stacy, in spite of the violence that felt great! Being able to actually strike back at the kind of scum that hurt you so badly, the sheer happiness of Jennifer’s family when we learned she was going to be all right, their gratitude ... you want more. And there’s plenty of opportunity for more in this city, the shape it’s in. But if you really want to do this, you are going to need more than just the fighting ability Genma taught you, a lot more._

Walking over to the window looking out over the now deserted street, Stacy finally nodded. _It’s a good thing Genma taught you that technique for going without sleep, you’re going to need it._

/oOo\

_Two years later:_

An obviously female figure dressed in a black bodysuit with a golden halo on its chest, with red gloves, boots and utility belt lightly landed on the rooftop, black red-trimmed cape swirling around her, then hit the button to disengage her golden swingline and retract it into its grip-case. Walking over to edge of the roof, Stacy looked out over the nighttime city in satisfaction, reaching up to make sure that her long blond wig had been kept secure with the mask that covered the upper part of her face — still firmly in place, good. It had been a long two years, keeping up on her work and a somewhat reduced social life, while quietly getting in study of criminology, forensics, lockpicking, and so many other subjects on the side. If it hadn’t been for Genma’s meditative techniques, she’d never have managed it. But now she was ready, and she just needed ...

A woman’s scream echoed up from several streets over, and Stacy’s satisfied smile vanished as she whirled and broke into a run in the direction the scream had come from. It was time to let everyone know that DarkAngel was in town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired to start this story by Felix Webster's excellent (though sadly incomplete) Robin One Half. I considered doing my own "Ranma as Robin" story, and still may eventually, but decided to go with the Dark Champions: The Animated Series sub-setting of the Hero Games Champions universe, both because it gives me more flexibility (and is less likely to be derivative), and because I actually have my reference materials on hand. Mind, I'm not wedded to the reference material, either – in DC:TAS, Stacy wasn't actually raped, though she had a close call (and, of course, she wasn't trained by Genma).


	2. Everything Goes Wrong

It was a cold February afternoon at the docks of Hudson City’s Bayside and a busy one, the work of unloading freighters from all over the world continuing in spite of the steady snowfall.

For one freighter from Japan the unloading was finished, most of the crew had been given leave to blow their saved-up paychecks in onshore establishments, and the skeleton crew still onboard were staying inside, out of the weather. As a result, no one was around to notice as one of the lines connecting the ship to the dock suddenly jerked, as if something was sliding down it.

Nor was anyone in position to see when a panda carrying a petite, redheaded girl in black and red Chinese garb and several large backpacks faded into view in the alley between the two warehouses closest to the freighter.

{Okay, Pop, we’re here. So, just how d’ya expect ta find one woman in an entire city, and where do we stay while yer doin’ it? It’s cold, and I wanna get changed back, now!} the girl said sullenly, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering from the cold.

The panda held up a sign: #This is America, boy,# *flip* #speak English!#

“Okay, sure, whatever you say,” Ranma grumbled. “So how about answering my questions?”

#How many Stacy Hunters# *flip* #can be in the phone book?# *flip* #And Hudson City has one of the# *flip* #largest city parks in the world.#

“Right, so we get off the freighter and we’re _still_ sleeping cold, wonderful. At least we can get some water heated,” Ranma said with a sigh. “So, where is this park?”

The panda simply reached out to pick the girl up, and the two faded out of sight again.

/oOo\

In a clearing that could have been in deep forest rather than the middle of a city, Ranma sighed with relief as the water she’d heated over the portable campfire stove transformed the redheaded pigtailed girl into a black-haired pigtailed boy, then tossed the rest of the hot water on the panda, turning it into a stout, balding middle-aged man.

“Well, here we are, Pop, what next?” Ranma asked as he adjusted his clothing, and Genma shrugged.

“We stay here tonight, then start looking tomorrow,” he said nonchalantly.

Ranma open his mouth to complain about spending another night in the cold and wet, then paused and closed his mouth without saying anything, simply looking at his father. _When did Pop start lookin’ old?_ he thought. _This winter travelin’ is gettin’ hard on him. And leavin’ Tendo-san behind hasn’t been easy on him, either. If only ... if only I had been able ta kiss Kuno, that idiot would have made a different wish ..._

Yet again, Ranma thought back to the moment where everything had gone wrong — at the end of Ranma’s date with Kuno, trying to convince the delusional kendoist to use the wishing sword to wish the Jusenkyo curse away, Kuno bending down for an end-of-date kiss from his redheaded goddess, and Ranma just couldn’t do it, couldn’t take that last step. So, Kuno took it for her, and wished that his fiery pigtailed girl would be free of the foul sorcerer’s malign influence and take as much delight in his presence as he did in hers. And just like that, Ranma did, finding herself overwhelmed by an incoherent mix of love and lust for the tall, handsome, brave, intelligent, honorable ...

Fortunately, Genma and Akane had been quick on the uptake, Akane knocking Kuno into next week and Genma sucker-punching his temporary daughter and immediately dunking her under the Hot-Water Falls. That had woken Ranma back up, back to his normal male self and instantly violently ill at the memory of how she’d felt, shaking with fear that the feelings would be back with a splash of cold water.

That fear, at least, had proven false, as a passing car hitting a puddle in the street on the way home had proven — or so Ranma had thought, until the next school day when the petite redhead (courtesy of the usual old woman) had walked through the school gates, seen Kuno waiting with his usual bokken, and found herself running to embrace him with all the love and passion the wish had invoked. _That_ time, it had been Nabiki with a thermos of hot tea that had saved the day, and the middle Tendo had been so shocked by what had happened that she hadn’t even charged him for it.

The third time, Ranma knew what would be coming a split-second before it hit, knew it was artificial, imposed, fought it with all the willpower she had — and managed to stay standing frozen in place, beating back the almost overpowering urge to protect Kuno from Akane as her fiancée had beaten the kendoist unconscious, then allowed Akane to pull her into the school and some hot water. Likewise the fourth time, and the fifth time, and the sixth.

And even worse than the feeling of helplessness, of being the one needing to be defended instead of defending, had been the dreams, of Ranma-chan and her beloved Tatewaki, and what the two so longed to do....

By now, Ranma was no longer the confident (not to say arrogant), cheerful boy always on the look-out for the next challenge that Nerima had come to know over the last half-year; in his place was a skittish, quiet, nervous wreck seriously considering suicide, something not lost on the worried Tendos and his father. Then, Genma had caught a flash of a news clip on the family room TV in passing, a rare piece of footage of the most famous vigilante working in Hudson City that most people were willing to consider a hero, DarkAngel — and the way she’d moved as she plowed through a small mob had been _very_ familiar.

So now, weeks later, here the two Saotomes were, in Hudson City. As the trip had gone on, Ranma had become more and more like his old self, even if she’d spent most of the time hiding in the freighter as a girl —getting far, far away from Tatewaki Kuno had done wonders for her mood.

_And you aren’t missing Akane at all, and wishing you were back at the Dojo, nope, not a bit — you just keep telling yourself that. ‘Ranma Saotome never loses’, yeah right._

With a sigh, Ranma nodded. “Sure, Pop, it’ll be good to see Hunter-san again after all these years.”

“ ’Miss Hunter’, Ranma, not ‘Hunter-san’.”

“Right, Miss Hunter.”

/oOo\

An hour later, dusk falling, the two had finished a small meal, using up the last of their supplies, and set up a tent — not something they’d used much on their previous training journey, but now necessary thanks to Jusenkyo. They were just laying out their blankets when suddenly they heard voices nearby, several men — and a clearly terrified woman. While Ranma couldn’t quite understand what they were saying, from the tone it was clear that some of the men were enjoying the woman’s fear, playing with her to heighten it, and Genma and Ranma exchanged glances and silently moved to the edge of the clearing where they’d set up camp.

They found only a narrow belt of trees separated them from another small clearing. In that clearing a gaijin couple dressed for a romantic evening on the town were kneeling, hands bound behind their backs, with five Japanese men standing in front of them. The male, a well-built black man, was tense but calm, while his blonde companion was crying, shaking, barely able to stay upright, begging for her life, promising to do anything they wanted, anything at all.

One of the Japanese men glanced over at the one in the middle. “Hey, Isamu, what say we take her up on it, ship her to Japan with the others? She’s a bit old, but she’d still bring a good price — Mr. Davenport, here, has good taste.”

Isamu looked thoughtful, gazing down at the couple, but finally shook his head. “As old as she is, she probably wouldn’t last long enough to make it worth it. Besides, Iwahara-sama wants a photo. Let’s get this over with.”

Even as Ranma charged forward, Genma right behind him, Isamu’s hand rose, the pistol it held flashed in the dusk with a thunderclap, and the back of Mr. Davenport’s head exploded outward, scattering blood and brains over the snow behind him. Even as Isamu turned the gun towards the woman, Ranma was there, his first blow breaking the elbow of the arm supporting the gun, his second strike shattering a kneecap, his third breaking Isamu’s jaw as the murderer flew backwards, instantly unconscious. That done, Ranma turned to the wide-eyed woman. “Easy, you’re safe now, nobody’s going to hurt you,” he soothed as he moved behind her and began to untie her hands.

While Ranma had concentrated on the leader, Genma had gone for his four subordinates and had been much more methodical about it, a single blow for each dropping them in their tracks. The last had actually gotten a shot off, but it had gone wild, nowhere near either of the Saotomes, and he now had a broken hand for his pains.

As Ranma finished untying the woman and suddenly found himself on his butt with a lap full of crying, babbling female, Genma shook his head with a wry smile, then whirled when across the clearing a twig snapped. The middle-aged martial artist’s eyes widened as two more men stepped into the clearing. One was raising a camera, but the other had some sort of submachine gun, and he was pointing it at Ranma and the woman ... and even as the camera’s flash lit up the gathering dark and the chattering submachine gun threw out its deadly hail, Ranma with his lapful was knocked to the side by Genma’s frantic dive, only to stare in horror as Genma’s body was hammered to the ground and blood splashed over the man holding the camera as Genma’s last desperate vacuum blade flashed across the clearing to slice the gunman’s body in half at the waist.


	3. Unhappy Reunion

“Hey, Sarge, what’s up?” one of the two cops standing to the side of the clearing called as a medium-sized, dark-haired, dusky-skinned policeman walked out of the trees.

“I think that’s my line,” Sergeant George Amado called back as he walked around the edge of the clearing to join the two, avoiding the bustle of crime scene investigators in the clearing itself.

Looking out over the activity illuminated by portable floodlights, he nodded at the petite redheaded Oriental girl crouched in the snow staring into space, blood soaking her shirt and trousers, clutching the bullet-torn body of a stout man in a dirty gi. “So, Jerry, what’s the story there?” he asked. “I’d think she’d have been taken back to the station by now.”

“She won’t leave, or let anyone touch the body,” one of the two cops said with a shrug. “And the only man to touch her has a broken finger for his pains, so nobody’s tried again.”

“Got it, don’t touch the cute redhead,” Sergeant Amado acknowledged, then sighed and walked over to crouch down next to the teenage girl.

The redhead’s dry eyes glanced over at him, then went back to staring at nothing. For a time, Sergeant Amado simply sat by her side without a word. Finally, he quietly said, “Look, kid, I know you’re hurting, and I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here forever.”

The girl’s eyes flickered to the sergeant. “I’m not leaving Dad,” she said in a low voice.

“Kid ... what’s your name?” Amado asked.

“Ranma.”

“Ranma, your dad isn’t here anymore — he’s moved on, all that’s left is the packaging. It’s cold and wet, do you think your father would want you getting sick guarding a body he doesn’t need anymore?”

For a moment Ranma’s arms tightened around her father’s body, then she abruptly shook her head.

Amado stood up and extended a hand down toward the teenager. “Then let’s go, get you cleaned up, get some food in you. I can’t say things will look better in the morning, but you’ll be better able to deal with it.”

Ranma looked up at the police sergeant’s extended hand for a long moment, then gently moved the body from off her lap and rose without assistance. As she did, Amado got his first clear look at the corpse in the floodlights’ glow and stiffened. He shot a glance at the redhead, then shrugged and motioned her toward the edge of the clearing. “This way,” he said, and Ranma wordlessly followed him out of the clearing to the east, the way she and her father had come several hours earlier.

As they walked toward the edge of the park, Amado nonchalantly asked, “By the way, what’s your dad’s name?”

“Genma,” Ranma answered distractedly.

With an effort, Amado kept from slumping. _Damn, I was afraid of that — Stacy is not going to like this at all._

/oOo\

Stacy looked around the bustling office party, her professional “aren’t I having a good time” smile securely in place. She really had more important things to be doing, but she’d already missed the last couple of company get togethers, and her position in the company was beginning to slip a little. Still ...

“Stacy!” she heard from across the room, and turned to see Steve and his wife approaching. “Steve, Jen, you made it, great!” she called back as her smile turned real.

“Yeah, we managed to find a babysitter for Kat at the last moment,” Jennifer said happily.

“And how is my favorite little rugrat?” Stacy asked.

“Doing just fine, and wondering when her Auntie Stacy is going to drop by — she’s missed her favorite playmate,” Jennifer replied.

Stacy’s smile turned wistful. “Things have been ... hectic, lately. But I’ll make time this week, I miss my favorite playmate, too.”

Just then, a ringing came from Stacy’s purse, and she hastily opened it up and snatched out a cellphone. “Sorry,” she apologized to her friends, “this is important.” Flipping open the phone, she glanced at the incoming number and raised it to her head. “Hey, George, good to hear from you, if a bit of a surprise at this time of the evening.”

Suddenly she stiffened. “What!?” she shouted, and the room went quiet as everyone else turned to look at her. Ignoring the questioning looks, she listened for a moment, then said, “I hope you’re wrong, too, but — Genma has a pretty distinctive look. I’ll be right down.” ... “No, I don’t need a ride, and you’d have to get me back here.” ... “A redheaded girl? No, the Ranma I knew was a black-haired boy.” ... “Right, see you shortly.”

Closing the phone, Stacy looked around at all the staring faces, her own face pale. “Sorry, everyone, but something’s come up — I’ll see you all at work.” Turning to her two friends, she added, “I’ll give you a call later, okay?” At Steve and Jennifer’s nods, she quickly collected her coat and was gone.

/oOo\

Sergeant Nathaniel Harmon looked up from his desk as a lovely woman with short, curly blond hair dressed for a party walked into the precinct building. “Can I help you, miss?” he asked as he ran an appreciative eye over her smoothly muscled figure.

“Yes, I’m Stacy Hunter. I’m looking for Sergeant Amado,” the blonde replied tersely, and Sergeant Harmon’s eyes widened.

“Right, he’s expecting you,” he replied as his eyes shot to her face and stayed there. He picked up his phone, and within a minute Sergeant Amado strode through the doors to the back.

“Stacy, thanks for getting here so quickly,” he said as he walked up to the blonde, giving her an appreciative look. “Looking good. Sorry to take you away from your party, and even more for such an awful reason, but ...” His voice trailed off as he motioned her toward the back, and the two headed deeper into the precinct headquarters.

After a moment, Stacy steeled herself to ask, “Genma?” Silently, George pulled a photo out of his breast pocket and passed it over. Stacy took one look and slammed to a stop. Taking a shaky breath, she nodded. “That’s him. How did he die?”

“Someone decided to off Michael Davenport, an assistant prosecutor assigned to the Stanson sisters case, along with his date. They got him, but his date got away and called the police. She said she was saved by a couple of men but one of them had been shot. When we found the clearing, Genma was already dead and a redheaded girl calling herself Ranma was by his body. She said he’s her father.” Looking Stacy over, George asked, “Are you going to be all right? Because if so, there’s a girl that could use your help — Ranma’s refused to eat or really get cleaned up, the best we could do was get her to accept a change of clothes. Maybe the fact that you knew Genma will mean she’ll listen to you.”

Stacy closed her eyes for a moment, took several deep breaths, and nodded. “I’ll be all right, let’s go.”

Nodding approval, George led her to an interrogation room and stopped, motioning her through. Stacy stepped in to find a petite redheaded Japanese girl dressed in men’s clothes many sizes too large sitting at the table and staring at the wall.

As she approached the table, the girl’s eyes flickered to her, away, then flashed back and fixed on her face. “St-Stacy?” the girl stuttered.

Stacy nodded. “Yes, I’m Stacy — Ranma?”

Yes, I’m Ranma,” the girl agreed, mouth twisting bitterly. After a moment, she added, “I remember how embarrassed you were the first time we sparred, and Dad ended up carrying you into the bath house because you were too sore to walk.”

_It_ is _him!_ Stacy walked over and knelt beside the girl. “What happened to — no, that’s not important right now,” she said, then took a deep breath. “Ranma ... I’m so sorry about Genma, he was a good man.”

Ranma laughed harshly. “Dad was a thief and a liar.”

“Perhaps,” Stacy said, “but he was a good man nonetheless.”  At Ranma’s disbelieving look, she added, “Don’t you think the woman whose life he helped save, and her family, would agree with me?”

Ranma slowly nodded, then her face crumpled as tears finally came, and Stacy pulled the girl into her lap as she sobbed.

Eventually the tears slowed, then stopped, and Ranma pulled away and stood up. “Sorry about that,” she mumbled, turning away in embarrassment.

Stacy stood up and gently laid a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she assured her. “Listen, the police are going to want to know what happened. Why don’t you talk to Sergeant Amado — he’s a good man, I’ve known him since ... since I was raped ... and I don’t think he’ll mind if I sit in — and then I’ll take you home, get you fed and cleaned up, okay?”

At the word “rape” Ranma’s head whipped around to stare at her, face contorting in anger. “Rape!? When, and who?” she snarled, but Stacy just shrugged.

“Old news — since before we met. So how about it? Let’s get the interview done and get out of here.”

After a moment, Ranma jerkily nodded, and the two headed for Sergeant Amado waiting outside.

/oOo\

Sitting across the dinner table from Ranma, Stacy stared at the black-haired boy looking dully down at the table, then looked around her apartment kitchen, fighting off the faint sense of unreality that had grown as Ranma had demonstrated his curse and told the story of how he and his father had ended up in Hudson City. “I knew things like that happened to people, but I’d never really _believed_ it,” she murmured softly to herself.

Focusing back on Ranma, she nodded. “Not that it matters to me one way or the other, whatever you may look like, you’re still Ranma. And you father was right, about me being DarkAngel. Whether he’s right about being able to help you ... I don’t know, I’ll have to make a call and ask. Meanwhile, why don’t you get some sleep? Go ahead and use the same bedroom you changed in.”

Ranma nodded, stood up, and started to clean up the dishes from the dinner Stacy had prepared, only to pause when Stacy shook her head.

“Leave it, Ranma, I’ll take care of that,” she said, and Ranma nodded dully and left for the bedroom. Stacy watched him go, looked over the dinner dishes, looked at the clock on the wall, then walked over to an apparently blank section of wall and pressed a thumb against it. A panel next to her hand popped open, and she removed a cell phone from inside the compartment. Opening it up, she pressed in a code, then hit a speed dial button and put the phone to her ear.

“Witchcraft, DarkAngel here, the tagalong on your little adventure in Hudson City a few months ago?” ... “That’s kind of you, but I know I’m not in your guys’ league. Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you so late in the evening, but I have a problem that’s more your type than mine, a kid with two enchantments on him he’d really rather not have, a Jusenkyo curse and one from a ‘wishing sword’ in Japan.” ... “Yes, a Jusenkyo curse, can you help?”


	4. Questions and Answers

In a third-story office decorated in the spare, minimalist style of the more traditional Japanese upper class, a middle-aged Japanese man dressed in formal Western business garb with tie loosened gazed down across what little could be seen of the night-time Mott Park, the major greenspace of Little Tokyo in Chinatown. {So, no photos?} Morita Yoshio of the Miyamiji-kai Yakuza clan asked in flawless Japanese without turning around.

The gurentai standing in the office, the clothes he’d worn at the fiasco in LeMastre Park badly stained with the reddish-brown of dried blood, shook his head. Then, remembering that his superior couldn’t see him, he said, {No, Morita-sama, not of the type you requested — Davenport-san’s date got away. However, I did get several shots of the two busybodies that interfered, though too late to prevent Davenport-san’s execution. That _was_ our primary task — taking photos of the date’s corpse was secondary.}

Morita stiffened. {Kazuki-san, are you making an excuse for this night’s disaster?} he asked calmly.

Tsurimi Kazuki fought off an urge to cringe. Taking a moment to steady his voice, he replied, {No, sir, simply repeating the orders you gave us personally before we set out.}

For a long moment Morita continued to stare out the window as Tsurimi broke out in a cold sweat, then turned around. {True enough, those were the orders I gave,} he said almost whimsically. {Still, five men ending up in police custody and another dead in the process of executing the traitor weren’t included in those orders, nor exactly the optimal outcome.} He quirked an eyebrow at his subordinate.

{No, sir, they were not,} Tsurimi instantly replied.

{I’m glad you agree,} Morita said. Another long moment passed in silence, then a faint approving smile crossed the Yakuza boss’s face. {Very good, you have courage,} he murmured. {You can relax, your duty was taking the requested photos, not carrying out the executions — the responsibility for this fiasco is not yours, _you_ will not be the one giving up a finger, at minimum.}

Morita’s smile broadened when Tsurimi carefully didn’t slump in relief. {By now, the police will be swarming all over LeMastre Park. Make copies of the photos you have of the two that interfered, then give them to Itou-san and have him distribute them, and tell him I wish to know whatever the police learn about those two. Then get cleaned up.}

Tsurimi bowed deeply to his superior, and turned and left the office.

/oOo\

Police Sergeant George Amado stepped out of his apartment building’s stairwell onto the roof. Walking to the edge, he gazed out across the city lights toward the unseen LeMastre Park. He lit up a cigarette, and waited.

Two more cigarettes later, a young, female voice came from behind him. “I got your message, what’s up?”

Turning, the dusky-skinned sergeant smiled at the familiar caped, blonde woman with the golden halo on her dark bodysuit. “DarkAngel, good to see you again, even if in these circumstances.”

“It’s always ‘these circumstances’, George,” DarkAngel replied, a wan smile briefly flashing into view underneath the mask covering her upper face. “So, what’s up this time?”

“Have you been following the Stanson sisters case?” he asked.

“Yes, like everyone else in Hudson City that’s turned on the news in the last few days I know that the owners of the modeling agency the two used have been arrested on kidnapping charges.”

“Yeah, well, the case was assigned to an up and coming assistant prosecutor by the name of Jason Davenport. Tonight he was murdered by gurentai working for the Miyamiji-kai in LeMastre Park.”

DarkAngel stiffened. “Them, again!” she hissed.

“Yup. Have you run into them since you helped capture those sokaiya?”

“No, I haven’t,” DarkAngel said, frowning thoughtfully. “I have to say I’m surprised — the yakuza are as violent as any, but they’re usually smart enough to not go directly after the police or prosecutors. Enough of that, and cops stop worrying about due process, it makes more sense to cut your losses.”

Amado shrugged. “Normally I’d agree with you, but _this_ yakuza clan seems to be getting full of itself —who else would have murdered the two sisters while they were taking a walk around the US embassy grounds? Seriously embarrassing for the Japanese government, they’d have to know they were kicking a hornet’s nest.

“Still, in this case they might have thought they were going after a traitor rather than an assistant prosecutor,” he added. “Turns out Vice had suspicions Davenport was in _somebody’s_ pocket, and if it was the Miyamiji-kai it must have seemed like mana from heaven when he was assigned to the Stanson case.”

DarkAngel nodded. “But maybe he found himself choking on blowing off a murder case, either by hitting his moral limits or because of the impact it would have on his career,” she mused.

“Yeah, that’s what I think. Still, early days, I could be wrong,”

Reaching into a pocket, Amado pulled out a flash drive and tossed it to her. “Here’s what we have so far,” he said. “Oh, by the way, tonight’s execution was interrupted by a couple of bystanders, apparently Japanese illegals — only reason Davenport’s date is still alive. One of the two ended up dead after killing one of the gurentai, method unknown, the other’s missing — a black-haired boy with a short braid at the back, is how the date described him. You might want to keep an eye out for him.”

“I will,” DarkAngel assured him.

The sergeant nodded, then turned and headed for the stairwell. “Well, it’s been a long day and longer night, I’m off to bed. Good luck,” he said over his shoulder just before closing the stairwell door.

DarkAngel gazed at the closed door for a long moment, then smiled wryly. _All these years, and I_ still _don’t know if he knows I’m Stacy. It would be nice if he did, but — not so good for his career if his superiors officially found out he knew. I guess we’ll just have to continue our little dance._ With a sigh, she stepped to the edge of the roof, fired off a grapple, and swung off into the night.

/oOo\

{I wish that you would be free of the foul sorcerer’s malign influence and take as much delight in my presence as I do in yours!} Kuno Tatewaki’s words, spoken in the precise, flowery Japanese the kendoist used to distinguish himself from the mob, seemed to echo in Ranma’s mind as the world shook, and she found herself filled with pure _need_ as she stepped toward the tall, handsome, brave, intelligent, honorable young man she loved more than life itself.

Suddenly, Akane was there, the youngest Tendo stepping in front of her. {Ranma, stop, what are you doing?!} the girl shouted as she grabbed at Ranma’s arm. Ranma reached out, grabbed, twisted, and ignored the crack of breaking bone as she dropped the body with the head now facing backwards and turned back toward the center of her world.

Kuno turned away from the portly balding man desperately trying to staunch the blood spurting from his neck with one hand even as more blood splashed from the stump of an arm. Tossing away his bloody bokken, the tall upperclassman stepped toward the redheaded girl of his dreams.

Ranma reached up, grasped the neckline of her dress, and with a desperate yank ripped it open to expose her chest. Stepping forward, she grasped the older boy’s hands to guide them toward her breasts and ...

... and Ranma shot upright in his borrowed bed with a strangled shout, dripping with sweat and his heart hammering in his chest. Bracing his elbows on his blanket-covered knees, he rubbed at his face. _Oh, kami, that was a bad one,_ he thought as his breathing slowed and the sound of his heartbeat beating in his ears seemed to fade away. With a sigh, he looked up at the clock on the wall. _Well after midnight, I hope I didn’t wake up Stacy-san._

Working his way out of the tangled sheets, Ranma walked out into the hall, paused for a moment, then when he didn’t hear any movement through the closed door to the apartment’s other bedroom headed out into the family room. Looking around, he found the telephone and, taking a deep breath, quickly dialed the long string of numbers needed for an international phone call.

A few rings later, and Tendo Kasumi’s serene voice came over the phone. _{Moshi moshi.}_

{Hey, Kasumi, it’s Ranma.}

_{Ranma! It’s so wonderful to hear from you, we’ve all been so worried!}_ Kasumi responded, as excited as he’d ever heard her. _{I hope everything’s going well?}_

{I ... no ... no, it isn’t. Kasumi, I have some bad news ...}

/oOo\

“Tadaima!” Nabiki called out as she stepped inside the front door of the Tendo home and slipped out of her school shoes and into a pair of house slippers. An abnormally subdued Akane followed her example, and the middle Tendo shot her younger sister a look of carefully concealed worry. _We’d better get word from Ranma soon. I could care less about that walking disaster area, but I don’t know_ what _Akane will do if we don’t,_ she thought as the pair finished slipping on their slippers and walked into the house.

Then Nabiki’s eyes widened as a spike of fear shot through her at the sight of their older sister standing by the telephone in the hall, staring at the wall and ignoring the dial tone coming from the handset in her hand. “Kasumi, what’s wrong?” the middle Tendo asked, stopping beside her older sister and taking the handset away from her to place it in its cradle. “Did ... did something happen to Ranma?”

“No, Ranma’s fine, he’s found the old student his father was looking for,” Kasumi said in a dazed tone. “But ... but Uncle Genma’s dead!”

Suddenly Akane was there, more alive than she’d been in weeks, almost shaking her mother figure. “Kasumi, where is he?!” she shouted.

“I don’t know, he wouldn’t say ... just to tell Father the bad news and that he’ll call back later with more details. Oh, and Akane, he said he hoped you’re doing all right, not getting into trouble without him around to bail you out,” Kasumi added with a mischievous if weak smile.

Akane turned away with a huff, while _He’s thinking of me!_ looped in her mind. Trying to disguise her relief and joy at being remembered with outrage, she grumped, “He could at least have said what continent he’s on — you’d think he doesn’t trust us.”

Nabiki chuckled. “He may not trust us, but he doesn’t know as much as he could about modern technology.” She pulled a pen and pad of paper out of her school bag, then reached over and hit a button on the telephone and quickly wrote down the number that flashed onto a tiny screen. “Like caller ID.”

/oOo\

Ranma hung up the phone with a sigh of relief, then walked over to look out unseeing through the apartment’s large window at the few lighted windows on the building across the street, and at the occasional car passing below. Memories of his father flitted through his mind: the outrageous lies he’d tell when pulling another con; the crazy training methods he occasionally came up with that actually seemed to work more often than not; the occasional warmth in his eyes as he’d watch Ranma flow through kata after kata; the look of lonely longing he would sometimes let show when he thought Ranma couldn’t see; the joy he seemed to radiate when around his old friend.

Finally, the pigtailed boy turned and walked into the kitchen. Turning on the water in the sink, he stuck his hand under the cold water streaming from the faucet. The now redheaded girl turned off the water, walked back into the family room, curled up on the couch with her arms wrapped around her knees, and broke down into gut-wrenching sobs.

/oOo\

Hours later, Stacy quietly opened the front door to her apartment, then stiffened when light from the family room washed over her. Silently, she slipped inside and gently closed the door, then looked around only to relax at the sight of the redheaded girl curled up on her side on the couch. Walking over she stood for a time gazing down at the sleeping, tear-stained face. Finally, she walked back to the guest room, then returned to drape a blanket over the teenager. “Happy dreams,” she murmured, then turned off the light and made her way to bed.


	5. Bad News and Good (Sort Of)

Ranma slowly came awake to the smell of frying bacon and the sound of someone moving around the kitchen next to the living room couch she was stretched out on. _Where am I? Where’s Pop?_ the cute redhead thought as she sat up and glanced around, dislodging the blanket covering her. Then the memory of the previous evening’s events smashed into her.

Alerted by the strangled cry, Stacy Hunter stepped to the kitchen doorway. Seeing Ranma sitting up on the couch, hands curled into fists and tears leaking out from under clenched shut eyelids, the blond woman quickly stepped back into the kitchen long enough to take the frying bacon off the burner, then rushed back into the living room to sit beside her young guest. She put an arm around the smaller redhead and pulled her head down against her shoulder, and Ranma once again broke down.

After a few minutes Ranma pulled away and sat up, scrubbing at her cheeks angrily. “This is getting old!” she growled. “Some guy I’m turning out to be, all weepy-waily like some girl.”

Stacy bit back her initial reaction as her eyes flickered over the very female body sitting next to her. Gently shaking her head, she said, “Your father was very important to you, Ranma — you loved him very much, and from the way he acted those weeks I lived with the two of you I can say he felt the same, even if he never actually said it.”

Standing up, she offered a hand to Ranma. “Come on, I’ve fixed some breakfast for us. Let’s eat, and then we can talk over where we go from here.”

/oOo\

Stacy watched as Ranma, once again a black-haired boy, finished the last of the scrambled eggs and bacon. “Ranma, one question first,” she said. “When you talked to George — Sergeant Amado — last night, why did you give the impression that your male form was separate, someone else?”

Ranma’s eyes dropped and his hand rose to tug lightly on his pigtail. “I didn’t want him to know I turn into a girl,” he muttered. “I hate it.”

Stacy slowly nodded. “I can understand that,” she mused, “and I didn’t say anything at the time, but you may have created problems for yourself.”

“But that’s for later,” she added, sitting up. “First, last night after you went to bed I called an acquaintance by the name of Witchcraft, to see if she could do anything about your curses, both of them. She said she didn’t know, but would find out. She’s flying down to meet us this morning.”

Ranma’s eyes shot up to lock on the blonde woman. “Really? Do you think she’ll be able to help?” he asked eagerly.

Stacy shrugged. “Witchcraft didn’t know, and if she doesn’t I certainly won’t. We’ll just have to find out.” Glancing at the clock on the wall, she stood up. “Come on, get cleaned up and changed and we’ll go find out.”

“Get changed?” Ranma asked, confused, and Stacy chuckled.

“Yes, well, thanks to your unwillingness to admit you change into a girl last, night, as far as the police and anyone that saw you come in here are concerned that’s exactly what you are. Considering that your male form was identified by a witness as helping break up a yakuza assassination, let’s keep it that way.” When Ranma stiffened, outraged, she hastily added, “For the sake of bystanders if no one else.”

After a long moment, Ranma reluctantly nodded. “Yeah, those kind of thugs won’t care about civilians any more than Kuno or Ryoga did,” he agreed with a sigh. “All right, I’ll go girl.”

Stacy smiled gently. “Thanks, Ranma, I can see how much you hate it, I appreciate it. Now why don’t you grab a quick shower and we can get out of here.”

“Right, should have done that first,” Ranma said as he stood up, blushing slightly.

“Not a problem, this morning at least — I decided to let you sleep in while I cooked,” Stacy responded, and waved him toward the door. “Now, shoo.”

The teenage boy left for the bedroom he’d used the previous night. Stacy remained at the table, gazing worriedly at the wall, until she heard the apartment’s only shower start. With a sigh, she stood up and walked over to the kitchen wall, popped open the secret compartment she’d opened the previous evening and removed the cell phone stored there. Opening the cell phone, she pushed a button, closed it up, then dropped it in her purse and walked into the living room to sit on the couch.

A few minutes later, Ranma, in cute redhead mode, walked back into the living room wearing a clean — or at least cleaner — set of her usual black and red Chinese-style clothing. Stacy looked her over, frowning slightly, as she stood up. “I can see that after we meet Witchcraft we’ll have to go shopping.” When Ranma started to protest, she shook her head. “No, Ranma, for now at least you’ll be living with me, and I’m not having my guest look like a vagabond! You’ll just have to put up with some new clothing.”

Ranma protested but Stacy was adamant, and the redhead finally acquiesced, grumpily. “Good,” Stacy said at that, “and after that we’ll grab some ice cream on the way home.” She chuckled, eyebrow going up, when Ranma instantly brightened. “Like that idea, do you? Well, come on, let’s get started.”

Leading Ranma out of the apartment, she locked the door behind them and the two headed for the parking garage.

/oOo\

An hour later, Stacy and Ranma were sitting on snow- and grass-covered Hangman’s Hill, the redheaded teenager intently watching the people walking up the hill to look out over LeMastre Park, or jogging up and down the path created for that purpose. From where she leaned back against Gibbet Rock, the large stone placed where the executioner’s platform had once stood, the short-haired blonde cracked her eyes open to gaze at her companion. Finally, she whispered, “Relax, Ranma, Witchcraft will get here when she gets here.”

“I think that’s her now,” Ranma said, nodding to two women approaching up the side of the hill to their left, a redhead looking about the same age as Stacy and a somewhat older woman with shoulder-length black hair. The two were both carrying backpacks and a picnic basket swinging at the side of the redhead, and were dressed in tasteful but ordinary coats and slacks, no different from some of the other women that had ascended the hill.

Stacy glanced over, then sat up straight, stretched, and stood up. “You’re right, how did you know?” she asked.

Ranma shrugged. “The redhead, my eyes don’t want to really focus on her face,” the girl said. “She doesn’t feel like a Ki master, so it’s probably magic.”

A moment later the two approaching women joined the two. The redheaded newcomer glanced around, then murmured, “DarkAngel?”

Stacy nodded. “Yes, this is what I look like out of costume.” Motioning to her companion, she added, “Witchcraft, this is Ranma, the boy I mentioned with the curses.”

Witchcraft looked Ranma over and smiled slightly. “I know some women that wouldn’t mind sharing that curse,” she mused. “Perhaps I’ll have to look into using it as a beauty product.”

“It wouldn’t work,” her companion said, shaking her head as Stacy chuckled and Ranma blushed, scowling. “This is what you’d look like if you were born female, right?” the raven-haired woman asked Ranma, who nodded agreement.

“Yeah, that’s what ... what Pop said,” she responded, fighting past a sudden lump in her throat. “That I look just like my mom did.”

Instantly, the other two sobered. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Witchcraft said quietly. Ranma nodded uncomfortably, and she motioned to her companion. “This is Alicia Blackmun, also a mage. I’m better at the flash-bang stuff, but she’s more experienced with the ritual and item side of magic. After you told me about the curses, DarkAngel, I checked with her and she agreed to come along and see what she could learn.”

Alicia looked around at the magnificent view of the snowy park — and the people enjoying it even on a weekday morning. “We’re going to need some privacy,” she said.

“Not a problem,” Stacy responded. “That’s why I decided to meet you here.” She nodded toward the woodlands visible to the south. “There’s any number of little clearings in there, and Witchcraft can set up that ... what did you call it? An S.E.P. field?”

Witchcraft nodded. “Right, a Somebody Else’s Problem field, that’ll work fine.”

“That’s not exactly the kind of name I’d expect for a magic spell,” Ranma commented as the four began walking down the hill. “I’d expect something ... flashier.”

“Oh, it has the usual sonorous, impressive title in the spellbook,” Witchcraft said with a laugh. “But one my teammates, Kinetik, hung that name on it the first time I used it after he joined the team. I liked it, so I’ve used it ever since.”

/oOo\

Alicia Blackmun’s voice trailed off and she opened her eyes, dropping her arms to her side. She looked down at the redheaded girl sitting lotus-fashion in the center of the diagram painted on the snow in what looked like black paint. “All done, Ranma, you can get up now,” she said with a sigh.

Ranma bounced to her feet and jumped out of the diagram. “What have you got?” she eagerly asked, then grimaced when her stomach growled.

“Let’s get this cleaned up first, move elsewhere and set up the picnic, then we’ll talk,” Alicia responded, chuckling as she pulled a bottle of what looked like water out of her backpack. Witchcraft pulled an identical bottle out of her own backpack, and the two quickly started circling the diagram, the black “paint” vanishing in three-foot swaths around the “water” they dribbled on the snow.

/\

Ranma placed a stone on the last corner of the picnic blanket laid out on the snow as Witchcraft pulled some sandwiches out of the basket to join the salad, chips and soda already on the blanket. Alicia passed out plates as Stacy loaded them up. Ranma accepted her plate, practically quivering with impatience, and Witchcraft glanced at her and nodded. “I have to say I’m impressed,” she said. “When I was your age I’d have been shaking Alicia by now, demanding answers.”

“Yeah, well, the old ghoul did her best to teach me patience, I guess some rubbed off,” the teenager responded without looking away from Alicia.

Alicia took a few bites from her sandwich. “Yeah, that hits the spot — ritual work can make you hungry,” she murmured, looking at Ranma out of the corner of her eye and smiling slightly. “Aren’t you cold, dressed in just shirt and pants like that?”

Ranma shrugged as she dove into her plate of food. “Ki technique Pop taught me, keeps you warm,” she replied.

“Interesting,” Alicia murmured, her smiling broadening even as she appeared to turn her attention to her food. “That could be useful on a winter date.”

The redhead blushed even as she made a face, and Alicia’s smile turned into a chuckle. Then she sobered and turned to face Ranma, with a sigh. “Okay, enough teasing ... Ranma, I have good news and sort of good news, and bad news. The bad news is, your two curses are too powerful, I can’t dispel either of them. Witchcraft might eventually, if she keeps up her studies,” — nodding to her redheaded friend — “but by ‘eventually’ I mean years, maybe a decade or more.”

Ranma’s face fell, shoulders slumping. “Damn ... I’d hoped ...” her voice trailed off, and Stacy hugged her sympathetically.

“Well, like I said, I do have some sort of good news,” Alicia continued. Pulling her backpack over to her, she opened one of the side pockets and pulled out a thin copper bracer. “This is an artifact I’ve had sitting in my shop for ages.” She tossed it over to Ranma, who caught it reflexively. “This will prevent water from activating your curse, but only when you’re in your cursed form, like now. Have you noticed a tendency for cold water to seek you out?”

“Yeah, it practically flows uphill sometimes to get at me,” Ranma groused, examining the bracer. It looked worn, old, the engravings of some form of writing she didn’t recognize lightly scratched.

“That’s because the curse _wants_ to be activated,” Alicia said. “So, as best my research can tell no one’s been able to lock it in uncursed form. But in cursed form, the magic doesn’t work against a lock. So if there’s anything you want to do where changing forms would be bad, wear this and you won’t have to worry about it.”

“Uh ... thanks, but I can’t afford this, whatever it costs — and it must cost plenty,” Ranma replied. She tried to hand back the bracer, but Alicia refused to take it.

“Keep it, it’s a gift, you need it a lot more than I do,” she insisted. “And don’t worry about the price, it isn’t exactly an item people are beating down my door to buy. Not many Jusenkyo-cursed people show up in Millennium City, and those that have are all cursed to turn into animals of one sort or another — not a form they want to be locked in. You’re the first Jusenkyo victim I’ve met with a cursed form that’s human.”

“I ... are you sure?” Ranma asked, then when Alicia nodded firmly slipped the bracer over her wrist and gently squeezed it closed. “Thanks, a lot. This’ll help, a little,” she muttered, reaching up to tug on her pigtail. “So what’s the good news?”

“The good news is about the curse from the Wishing Sword,” Alicia said with a forced smile. “I’m not strong enough to dispel it, and Witchcraft doesn’t have the experience yet, but this kind of spell needs reinforcement — it’ll fade over time.”

“Yes!” Ranma shouted gleefully.

Stacy smiled happily, but then sobered. “How long until it’s gone?” she asked.

Alicia shrugged, smile vanishing. “It depends. So long as Ranma doesn’t have reason to fight it, it’ll fade within a few years on the outside. If he consistently resists it, it’ll still fade but take longer. If he gives in to it even occasionally, it won’t fade at all. The best way to avoid that would be to avoid the maniac that made the wish.”

Ranma froze, joy forgotten. “So I can’t go home,” she whispered.

“If that’s where this Kuno lives, no, you shouldn’t,” Alicia responded soberly.

Stacy reached out to place a gentle hand on Ranma’s shoulder, but the faux-girl shook it off as she jumped to her feet and ran into the trees. Stacy turned to the other two, rising to her feet. “Listen, Witchcraft, Alicia, thanks for the help and I hate to run out on you, but —”

“But Ranma needs you,” Witchcraft finished as she and Alicia stood. “I’m just sorry we couldn’t be more help. Go, find Ranma, don’t worry about us. Will you need help finding him?”

Stacy shook her head. “No, I was afraid something like this might happen, so I planted a tracer on him.”

Witchcraft smiled. “Smart, Nighthawk would approve. We need to head home, anyway. Give me a call and let me know how things go.”

Stacy nodded her agreement, embraced her friends, older and new, pulled a small tracking device out of her purse, and disappeared into the woods after Ranma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lifted the bracer from Felix Webster's excellent if sadly incomplete "Robin 1/2" pretty much whole, at least in function, though it might or might not be an Amazon artifact this time.
> 
> Alicia Blackmun, Kinetik and Nighthawk are all from Hero Games' Champions setting, and of course Hangman's Hill is from the Hudson City setting book. The 'S.E.P. field' name comes from Douglas Adam's hilarious Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy, I can't remember which book.


	6. Considering the Options

Surprisingly, Stacy didn’t have to go very far to find her guest. She stepped out of the copse that had surrounded the little clearing where Alicia had broken the bad news to find the redhead sitting in the snow by one of the streams that ran through the park, knees pulled up against her generous chest, flicking pebbles past the ice along the bank into the flowing water. Sighing softly with relief, Stacy turned off the tracking device and put it back in her bag, then sat down beside Ranma.

Ranma glanced at her, as she tucked her legs underneath, face surprisingly clean of tears, then went back to watching pebbles plunk into the stream one at a time. Stacy simply waited silently, and finally Ranma spoke.

{Why me?} she asked in a quiet voice in her native Japanese. {Why does this crap always have to land on me? Did I anger a kami somehow and didn’t know it?} The redhead suddenly laughed harshly. {More likely, _Pop_ did it, and I’m catching the hell as usual.}

Stacy winced, then leaned over and put an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. {I don’t know, Ranma, I just don’t know,} she whispered. {I didn’t understand it when I was raped on a street that I thought was safe, and I understand it even less since I became DarkAngel. I don’t understand why a little girl gets kidnapped from a school yard in broad daylight and her abused body is found a week later. I don’t know why a woman stays with an abusive husband until she can’t take it anymore and decorates a wall with his brains. I don’t know ... let’s just say that when I finally meet God I’m going to have some serious questions for him. Until then, all I can do is help those I can, help punish their abusers when I can’t, and keep moving on.}

Ranma had stiffened on feeling the arm across her shoulders, but after a moment she relaxed, and even lay her head on Stacy’s shoulder. After a few minutes of silence, still gazing at the flowing stream, she asked, {Yeah, I guess you’re right, but where do I go now? I appreciate you letting me stay with you for awhile, but I can’t mooch off you forever — I don’t even have the excuse you’re my fiancée this time.}

{Yes, you can,} Stacy instantly disagreed. {Your father gave me my life back, my future. If in return all I do is give you a place to live while you finish growing up ... well, that doesn’t come close to paying off that debt.

{So, let me make a couple of suggestions,} she continued as the redhead she was sitting next to lifted her head from her shoulder to stare at her.

{First, you could return to Japan. I’m sure I could arrange it easily enough — you _are_ Japanese, after all, and not here legally. You can’t return to where that psycho is chasing you, but you may know someone else that would take you in. That way, you’d at least be among people that speak your own language, that you understand better.

{Second, you can stay with me and help me track down the man responsible for your father’s death.}

Ranma shot upright, pulling away from Stacy’s arm across her shoulder. {But ... but I thought the man that killed Pop is dead ... isn’t he? Pop killed him!}

{Yes, he did,} Stacy agreed. {But Ranma, those were just thugs — tools. They didn’t decide to kill an assistant county prosecutor and his date for cheap thrills. In fact, I already have a good idea who they were working for, the problem is proving it.}

Ranma simply stared for a long moment, her face blank. Finally, in a voice leached of all emotion she said, {You don’t need proof. You just tell me who and where, and he won’t be a problem anymore.}

{No, no killing!} Stacy almost shouted. {Never killing, not unless it’s needed to save someone’s life, and in the years I’ve been DarkAngel it hasn’t been. We do not act like the scum we’re fighting, punishment is left to the courts.} Ranma jerked to her feet, whirling around to face away from Stacy, fists clenched. After a moment, Stacy added, {I’m not the only vigilante in Hudson City, Ranma, there are others — and most of them kill at the drop of a hat, as many as they can. They’re hunted by the police, and if they’re ever caught ... I doubt they’ll last long in prison. And ... I’ve met one or two, in my time. I’m not sure they’re even human anymore.}

After a moment, Ranma’s head bobbed. {Yeah, I’ve met one or two martial artists like that. Not killers,} she hastily added, {but the Art is all that matters to them. They don’t have friends or family, really. Everyone they meet is either a way to further their Art or don’t matter.} The redhead turned around and dropped back down to sit next to Stacy. {I was headed that way myself, before ...}

Her voice trailed off, and Stacy chuckled. {You met a girl, right?}

{I am not in love with that tomboy!} Ranma shouted.

{ _What_ tomboy?} Stacy asked, quirking an eyebrow, then started to laugh when Ranma blushed as red as her hair, eyes dropping as she reached up to tug on her pigtail. After a few minutes, Stacy managed to bring her laughter under control. Wiping her eyes, she shook her head. {Don’t worry, Ranma, I won’t ask about the long distance phone bills,} she teased, then sobered.

{Ranma, there is one thing — if you stay with me, help me seek justice for your father, you will have to spend much of your time as a girl. Possibly most if it.}

{What? Why?} Ranma demanded.

Stacy sighed. (Ranma, if you become my ... well, ‘sidekick’ doesn’t really fit, after all the training your father must have given you since we first met, in a straight-up fight I doubt I could make you break a sweat. If you become my partner, your curse isn’t really a problem — might even be a plus, if the rumor gets out that there’s two of you. But your civilian identity would have to be female — partly because the police already think you’re female, but mostly because of that bacer.}  She nodded toward Ranma’s wrist.  {Having your curse switch you while you’re my partner is one thing, having it happen while you’re a civilian another thing entirely. If that happens often enough anyone with half a brain will figure out that Saotome Ranma is my partner — and that Stacy Hunter is DarkAngel. And if _that_ happens — well, if I’m lucky I’ll just end up in jail. More likely, I’ll be dead.}

Ranma simply sat for a long moment, then started to shake her head, when Stacy’s handbag started ringing. Giving Ranma an apologetic smile, Stacy reached in and pulled out her cellphone. Flipping it open, eyebrows rising at the incoming number displayed, she hit the ‘accept’ button. “Hello, George, what’s going on?” ... “Right, we’re in LaMastre Park —” ... “No, we’re nowhere near the crime scene, I’m not going Nancy Drew on you —” ... “Yes, I’m sure that’s good news. Anyway, we’ll be awhile getting to the station house, but we’ll get there as soon as we can. See you there.”

Closing the phone and putting it back in the handbag, the blonde rose to her feet and offered a hand to her guest. “Come on, Ranma, Sergeant Amado wants to see us down at the police station. It’s just as well, think over my offer before you say yes or no, okay?”

Ignoring the offered hand, Ranma flipped to her feet. “Okay, but I don’t think I’ll change my mind.”

Stacy shrugged. “As long as you think it over, first,” she responded. “This way.”

/oOo\

Nabiki sat back in her chair and rubbed weary eyes, then stared again to the _City News_ news story that had kicked off her marathon research project. PROSECUTOR ASSASSINATED IN LEMASTRE PARK, screamed the headline she had stayed up late to wait for. However, that article had only been the start of an even later night, had led to a lengthy news article cascade, through stories of a Hudson City modeling agency being implicated in young women being kidnapped and shipped to a Japanese brothel as sex slaves; two American girls, sisters but separated at a young age when adopted by different families, escaping from sex slavery in Japan only to be murdered at the U.S.’s Japanese embassy (the ripples from _that_ were still bouncing around Japan); and on back to the articles of the two girls’ kidnappings, the first several years back and the second the previous year.

Of course, only the latest article had mentioned Ranma and his father, and then Genma only as “an unidentified man found dead at the scene” and Ranma as “an unidentified witness.” She was only guessing that this had to do with Ranma, but it felt like a pretty solid guess — nothing else on the Hudson City newspapers’ websites seemed to fit. And if it was ...

{Damn, Ranma, what have you gotten yourself involved in this time? The usual zaniness is one thing, but the Yakuza play for keeps!} _And maybe if I hadn’t helped feed Kuno’s obsession, Ranma would still be here and his father would still be alive._ Firmly ignoring her inner voice, the middle Tendo rose to her feet and walked over to sit on her bed, leaning on the windowsill and gazing out her open window at the nighttime sky. _So, what do I tell Kasumi and Akane? They’re going to want some answers tomorrow — today — and I can’t give them any — not yet. And for the phone number, all I really have is a name and an address. And be honest with yourself, girl, for right now, at least, you don’t want any more. What you don’t know, you can’t accidentally spill to Kuno or the Amazons._

Nabiki chuckled wryly. {Well, girl, I think you’ve answered your own question,} she murmured. {If you don’t have anything to tell them, then that’s how it is, they’ll just have to wait.} And with that, the normally mercenary Tendo rose to strip down for sleep for what few hours remained of the night.


	7. Unfinished Business

A bleary-eyed Sergeant George Amado, sitting at a paper-strewn desk where it wasn’t covered by stacks of folders, looked up as Stacy and her redheaded guest were ushered up to him, then nodded his thanks to the policeman that had escorted them. As their escort hurried back to his post, George grabbed a folder from the nearest stack and stood up. “Let’s get some coffee and then take this somewhere a bit more private,” he said.

A few minutes later, the three were seated next to a table in an interview room, one without a window with one-way glass. “Private?” Stacy asked, nodding toward the speaker mounted on the wall as she sipped from her cup. She grimaced and quickly set it aside.

“Yeah, the microphones for this room have been busted forever, and we never seem to be able to find enough give in the budget to repair them,” George assured her with a chuckle.

Stacey joined in the laugh, and noticing Ranma’s confused look, added, “I’ll explain later.” Turning to her friend, she continued, “So, what was so important that you asked us to come down right away? And this early in the day? You had a rather late night, yesterday.”

“That in a moment,” the sergeant said. “First, before I left last night I sent off some emails to Japan, asking for whatever they have on Genma and both Ranma Saotomes, and when I came in this morning I found responses already waiting for me.”

“Is that rapid a turnaround normal?” Stacy asked in surprise.

“Not hardly, but the Japanese were _very_ embarrassed when the Stanson sisters were murdered at our embassy there, and anything having to do with that case is getting full and rapid assistance. Some of their superheroes even volunteered to help, but we had to tell them that we didn’t have anyone to aim them at just yet.

“Anyway,” George continued, holding up a thick folder, “Genma had quite a record, a list of petty scams and thievery going back decades — along with the occasional case of stepping in to help out someone in danger, though he’d usually ask for whatever they’d give him as a reward afterward. The Japanese cops have him down as mostly harmless and occasionally helpful.”

“Yeah, that was Dad,” agreed a slightly teary-eyed Ranma in a shaky voice.

George glanced at the redhead. “There’s some mention of a Ranma in there, too — your brother, you said. They say he’s a good kid, if a bit full of himself. Apparently he’s proof positive that environment isn’t everything. There’s no mention of you, though.”

“There wouldn’t be,” Stacy quickly said, before Ranma had a chance to respond. “She’s the result of an encounter Genma and Ranma had with some ancient magic.”

“Ah, that would explain a lot,” George said slowly. “So our Ranma here has no legal identity?”

“Not that I know of,” Stacy replied. “Ranma?”

“Ah, no, none,” Ranma agreed after a moment’s pause.

“Hmmm, that’s going to make things ... interesting ... for Social Services and Immigration,” the sergeant mused. “You were planning on contacting them before they contacted you, right?”

“Absolutely, first thing after some shopping and lunch,” Stacy assured him. “And this isn’t actually unprecedented — there have been clones and magical copies of superheroes and those closest to them over the years, artificial intelligences, animals made sentient through both magic and science ... oh, all sorts of things, there’s plenty of legal precedent for creating a new identity for a new person. Typically, in the case of copies the new person is a citizen of the same country as the original. But seeing how Ranma hasn’t been registered yet, if she agrees to stay with me I’m hoping to get her U.S. citizenship — the fact that she was orphaned because her father saved the life of a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, especially with _this_ case, ought to help. Of course, we’ll need one of the magic types to verify the magic, and we don’t really have anyone around here that I know of. Witchcraft was here awhile back with the rest of the Champions, why don’t you send them a request?”

At George’s raised eyebrows, she added with a shrug, “I’ve been doing some research since Ranma told me what happened. I know it seems a bit unusual, but we just haven’t had to worry much about this sort of thing in Hudson City, before.”

“No, instead we get the psycho killers and madmen. I think I’d trade a little more superpowered craziness for a little less blood,” George said, voice turning bitter for a moment. Taking a deep breath and straightening in his seat, he continued, “And that brings us to why I’m here this early, and asked you to come in. Deborah Manning, the young woman Genma died saving, was kidnapped out of her home this morning.”

Ranma jerked upright, mouth opening, only to freeze at a brief touch of Stacy’s hand. Glancing at the blonde, she settled back when Stacy shook her head.

Stacy said quietly, “I would have thought you’d have had her guarded.”

“You’re right,” George agreed, “and we did, two patrolmen, both dead at the scene. Also at the scene was this.”

He handed Stacy a heavily creased sheet of paper. She glanced at it and froze, staring. After a long moment she reluctantly passed it to Ranma. The redhead found herself looking at a picture of her father, spots of what were probably blood running in a line across his chest, while behind him on the snow were Ranma’s male form with a young woman sitting in his lap, clutching at him. Ranma’s face had been circled.

“Not good,” Stacy murmured.

Sergeant Amado snorted. “Very not good,” he agreed, looking at Ranma as the redhead crumpled the picture in her fist, two tears rolling down her face. “It seems these thugs are determined to hammer down anyone that dares get in their way, and they’re hunting your brother. They may come after you, if they can’t find him. Or even if they can. I can assign a couple of patrolmen —”

“Forget it,” Ranma said instantly. “I don’t need any guards. Though _they_ may, if ... if my brother catches up with them.”

“No corpses!” the sergeant ordered sternly, leaning forward. “We have too many murdering vigilantes in this city already. If your brother starts killing people, I _will_ hunt him down to the best of my ability.”

Ranma stiffened, then relaxed as Stacy again laid a hand on her arm. “We’ll pass that on if we see him,” the blonde said. “But I agree with Ranma — no guards. It would play havoc with my work, and I’ve been practicing martial arts since I was raped. We’ll be fine.”

George looked doubtful, but finally shrugged. “I know how stubborn you can be, so no personally assigned guards. But I’ll be putting out the word to everyone in your home and work areas to keep an eye out, and if you ever change your mind you know who to call.”

/\

Stacy and Ranma left soon after, the shapely blonde spending a few minutes in gossip while keeping an eye on the stiff younger redhead before they made their goodbyes and the two were escorted back to the public area of the station house. Stacy quickly got Ranma out to her car, and a few minutes later they were back in traffic headed toward her apartment.

Stacy glanced toward her stiff, silent guest. _First, take care of any possible bugs._ She hit a button on her dash and sighed softly. {Let it out, Ranma,} she said gently in his native Japanese.

Ranma shuddered, closed her eyes, and started a rant in her native Japanese that quickly had Stacy in awe. She didn’t even recognize all the words, but the ones she did ... _You can definitely tell Ranma’s spent some time in rough company,_ she thought. Finally the redheaded teenager wound down. Stacy waited for a few minutes, but when Ranma stayed silent, she hesitantly said, {I don’t want to seem like I’m pressuring you, but ... does this mean you’re taking me up on my offer? Even if it means spending most of your days as a girl?}

Ranma took a deep breath, then nodded. {Yes, at least until this is over. We _saved_ her. Pop _died_ saving her! And they just ... just ... made it all worthless!}

{No, they haven’t, not yet,} Stacy instantly disagreed. {If all they were going to do is kill her, they’d have left her body with those of the cops. No, she’s still alive. Whether she’ll remain that way ... I don’t know. That’s mostly out of our hands. But she’s going to have both of us looking for her.}

{Damn straight!} Ranma growled. {So, what first?}

{First, we’re going to get some lunch. Then, we’re going shopping to get you some clothes that fit. And then, we’re going to check in with Social Services and Immigration.}

{What?! But Deborah —}

{Will have to look after herself for awhile. There’s nothing we can do right now, and there _are_ things we need to do if we aren’t going to have the government breathing down our necks,} Stacy said firmly. {Besides ... Ranma, if you stay in my business long, you’re going to find that you need to be able to set cases aside — not forget about them, exactly, but ... put them out of your head for a bit, enjoy life. Otherwise, the ugliness will overwhelm you and you won’t last long.}

After a long moment, Ranma slowly nodded. {I think I can see that. But ... I don’t know if I can, I keep seeing her when she glomped onto me in the park, how _relieved_ she was —}

{And we’ll do our best to see that again. But in the meantime, let’s eat, and you seemed to like the idea of ice cream ...} A reluctant smile broke across Ranma’s face, and Stacy grinned. {Then some time being bored by bureaucrats, and then ...} She hesitated for a moment, then continued, {Then there’s someone I want you to meet. She might help you forget about the ugliness for awhile — I know she does me.}


	8. New Connections

Ranma sighed with relief as she and Stacy walked through the doors of City Hall and back into the chilly February sunlight, the redhead now dressed in jeans, blouse and a windbreaker mostly zipped up (and a set of bra and panties that Stacy had insisted on and Ranma was trying very hard not to think about—even if they were turning out to be more comfortable than the boxers she’d been wearing). “I’m sure glad _that_ ’s over,” the redhead enthused.

Stacy glanced back over her shoulder as they started down the steps toward the statue of Poseidon in the middle of City Center Plaza, a slight frown on her face. “Yes, all the paperwork to establish your legal identity filled out and in process, the papers to make me your legal guardian — now all we can do is wait. That went much more smoothly than I expected,” she mused thoughtfully.

“And that’s a problem because ... ?” Ranma asked, pulling a chuckle out of her blonde companion.

“Your English is remarkably good, right down to slang,” she observed.

Ranma shrugged. “Pop insisted — said with America on top of the world, we’d be dealing with Americans sooner or later and should be able to talk the language. Besides, any foreigners we met were more likely to speak English than Japanese.” _And it’s kind of hard to fast-talk someone when you don’t speak their language,_ Ranma thought but didn’t say. Her new friend had had a rather rosy-eyed view of her father, and Ranma had found herself enjoying the fact that this time it had actually been earned.

“So why’s how smooth things went a problem?”

“Because bureaucracies _never_ work that smoothly,” Stacy replied. “Even when the bureaucrat in question is actively trying to help you, there’ll be forms lost, lists of paperwork you won’t have that are absolutely necessary, someone you need to talk to that’s not in the office just then — something _always_ goes wrong. But this time it didn’t, we slid right through like we were on greased rails — which makes me wonder if perhaps the rails _were_ greased, and why.”

At Ranma’s confused look, Stacy shrugged ruefully, and murmured in Japanese, {After living a double life for awhile it makes you paranoid,} then added more loudly in English, “Anyway, since we finished up this quickly we’re going to have time for a visit I was going to put off till tomorrow.”

/\

Ranma looked somewhat dazedly around the huge mall Stacy had brought them to — not the same one where they’d gone shopping for new clothes for the teenager (most of them in what little trunk space Stacy’s tiny car had), but even bigger.

“So you never saw anything like this in Japan?” Stacy inquired with a smile.

“No!” Ranma exclaimed, then hastily added, “I’m sure there are places there just as big, but Dad never went there, at least not with me. Probably afraid he’d spend some money.”

Stacy chuckled.

Carefully ignoring her companion’s humor, Ranma asked, “So why are we here? I thought we got all the shopping done, already.”

“Not hardly,” Stacy replied, “but until we know where you’ll be going to school and what classes the rest can wait. No, we’re here for that.” She nodded to an unobtrusive storefront ahead and to the right, and Ranma felt her eyebrows rise at the sight as they approached.

“A dojo? _Here?_ Why would someone set up a dojo here?” she asked derisively.

A male, elderly voice said,.  “Perhaps because this is where the young people are — the ones that need a little exercise, the wise ones that choose to learn something of self defense, and the rare one that finds a calling.” Stacy brightened at the sight of the old, white-haired, balding Chinese man lounging on a bench a few feet from the dojo entrance. He rose to his feet as she strode over to him, bowed deeply, then embraced him for a moment. “It is good to see you again, little dove,” he said as she broke the embrace. “You don’t visit often enough.”

“I’m sorry, Sensei, but my careers have kept me busy lately. In fact, I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for Ranma Saotome, here. Ranma, this is Peng Ka-fu, the sensei of this dojo.”

“I see,” the old man said, as he looked over the redhead intently.

Ranma hastily bowed. “My apologies for the disrespect, I meant no offence,” she said softly. While finding this old man and his dojo in the middle of a busy American mall was a serious surprise, the way he held himself and moved, the aura of calm that seemed to radiate from him that Ranma had felt before from a very few masters he and his father had encountered during the training trip — _Be very careful here, Ranma, a Chinese sensei might be weird, but I bet he could give Pop a run for his money!_

The old man gazed at Ranma for a long moment, face expressionless, but finally nodded. “You did mean it, but I will accept your apology. Just remember, young one, if you don’t want something heard, don’t say it.” Ranma nodded hastily, and Peng turned his attention back to Stacy. “Did you bring young Ranma for training?”

“Uh ... not exactly,” Stacy replied. “Actually, you’re probably the only one in the city I know that could make Ranma a decent sparring partner.”

“I see,” Peng repeated, again looking Ranma over then nodding slowly. “Yes, you hide it well, but once one knows to look the signs are there. And in a girl so young, interesting.”

Ranma winced, hands tightening into fists, and Stacy quickly said, “There’s a bit more to it than that.”

“Well, my next class isn’t for another hour, so come on in, tell me the story behind this.” Peng waved toward the dojo entrance, and Ranma hastily obeyed with Stacy and the sensei following behind.

/\

Ranma knelt in the back room of the dojo with an empty tea cup in his hand, his bracer lying on the low table in front of him and his male form filling out a borrowed gi. Warm water ran through his dark hair and dripped down his face.

Peng nodded, again looking Ranma over slowly. {So, this explains why I was able to detect signs of your skill, you aren’t as familiar with your female form and it threw off your movements,} he murmured in Japanese. {Your school specializes in surprise, doesn’t it?}

{Yes,} Ranma agreed, bowing, face set. {I am the only living student of the Saotome school of Anything Goes Martial Arts.}

Peng stiffened. {Saotome Genma is dead?} he asked.

Ranma gaped. {You knew Pop?} he demanded.

{Yes, Ranma, I did — before he ever married Nodoka, much less before you were born. Stacy, you never told me you were trained by Saotome Genma,} he added, turning to the blonde.

Stacy shrugged. {If he ever told me his last name, I’d forgotten it by the time we separated — I simply called him sensei at the beginning, and Genma by the end. And I didn’t realize at the time that the martial arts came in schools as well as styles, so I never asked what the name of his School was. What was he like when you knew him?}

Peng hesitated, and Ranma chuckled harshly. {The truth, sensei, no need to sugarcoat it,} the boy said, and Peng smiled wryly.

{Very well, the unvarnished truth it is. Normally, Genma was not someone you wanted around — greedy, lazy, focused on his own needs and desires to the extent that it didn’t even occur to him to worry about how they would impact others. But when it really mattered, he would have your back or even charge in first if innocents were in danger. A weak and selfish but at heart good man.}

Ranma nodded his agreement, staring off into empty space, and the room fell silent for a time.

Finally, when Ranma showed no sign of returning to the present, Stacy sighed and said, {Sensei, I brought Ranma here for more than just to introduce you to a sparring partner.} She paused long enough to see that she had Ranma’s attention, then continued, {While Ranma will be staying with me at least long enough to help deal with the men responsible for his father’s death, thanks to the way he was introduced to the police his official identity will be attached to his girl form and that is how he will spend most of his day time — especially since both the police and the yakuza are looking for the boy that was with his father when he died. And while Ranma will be joining me in my nighttime activities as a male, that won’t be as Ranma.} _Hmmm, we’ll have to come up with a name._ {What I was hoping is that you would allow Ranma to hang out here after school a few days a week, so that he can spend time as himself on a regular basis.}

{Of course he can,} Peng agreed instantly.

Ranma sighed softly, his shoulders slumping as he felt a thrumming tension he hadn’t been aware of vanish, then bowed deeply to the old Chinese man. {Thank you,} he said, his sincerity plain.

{The honor is mine,} Peng responded, returning the bow. {And now, why don’t you show me how well you’ve learned your father’s lessons?} Ranma bounced to his feet, perking up instantly, and Peng smiled.

/oOo\

Deborah Manning paced nervously around the room she’d occupied for several hours, rubbing her arms and shivering. Partly that was because she was still wearing the skimpy lingerie she’d worn to bed the previous evening. But mostly, it was her fear growing stronger by the minute.

When the Oriental thugs had first broken into her home and killed the policemen assigned to guard her, she’d been certain she was going to die along with them. Then, when instead she’d been tied up, blindfolded, wrapped in a blanket and tossed into a car trunk, she was certain she was going to be gang raped and _then_ murdered.

Instead, when the blindfold had been removed she’d found herself in this tastefully luxurious room. Whoever had furnished it had gone for the minimalist approach, bookshelves (with the books written in some oriental alphabet she didn’t recognize), a few chairs and low table, some Japanese watercolor prints (those she did recognize) — but no windows. Now her fear of being gang raped had vanished, but she had no idea what was going to happen and that terrified her.

Suddenly, she heard a key in the room’s single door. Even as she turned to face it the door opened and a middle-aged man dressed in a high quality business suit strode through, followed by several of the thugs that had kidnapped her. The man wasn’t someone she’d ever seen, of average height, dark hair, definitely Oriental although she didn’t know the people there well enough to pick out regional differences. All in all, he looked rather ordinary ... until she saw his eyes and froze in place, hands still on her arms, at the predator gazing at her through them.

Without a word he slowly circled her, eyes examining every inch of her scantily clad body. Finally, as the tension grew unbearable, Debbie asked, “What do you want with me?” She didn’t see the heavy open-handed slap that smashed into her cheek hard enough to spin her around and drop her to her knees.

“You will speak only when spoken to, and obey whatever orders I or any of my lieutenants give,” the man said as he walked around to stare down at her face. “Do you understand?” She simply stared up at him, hand pressed to her bruising cheek, stunned speechless, then doubled over as his kick exploded into her stomach hard enough to pick her up off her knees and drop her to the hardwood floor, where she rolled to her hands and knees and vomited up what little was left in her stomach.

Through her dry heaves, she faintly heard the man say, “You did well to pick her up. We need to keep the pressure up, cannot let anyone think that they can escape from us once we have acquired them. She is certainly beautiful enough to send to Tokyo once the pipeline is reopened and her blond hair will be a draw. Until then I can make use of her. Tell the servants that after she cleans up the mess she made she is to be prepared for my service.”

Even as she fought for breath, Debbie felt her fear ease off — whatever happened to her, however ... unpleasant ... it was going to be, she would live. And she wasn’t going to be smuggled out of the country like the Stanson sisters had been, she had a chance. Even if she couldn’t escape on her own, there would be people looking for her. And not just because of her and Michael, in the name of the murdered cops as well.

There was hope.

/oOo\

At a stoplight Stacy took her eyes from the road long enough to glance at the redhead in the passenger seat next to her, smiling at the broad grin on Ranma’s face in spite of the large bruise forming above one eye. {You seem to be in a much better mood,} she commented. {You enjoy losing that much?}

{Hey, everybody loses sometimes, especially to someone as good as Peng-sensei, but I never lose the same way twice!} Ranma boasted. {And did you see the way he took me down the second time? I didn’t even see it coming, it was great! I can’t wait to see if I can figure out how he did that and return the favor next time we spar.}

Stacy chuckled ruefully, shaking her head. {Well, at least you’ll have a good cover for the bruises your coming nightlife will inevitably produce,} she said wryly.

Ranma instantly sobered. {So when does that start? Tonight?}

{No,} Stacy said, {we need to get a costume for you first. It won’t do for you to join me in ordinary street clothes and a makeshift mask, then later show up in a costume—it would make it too easy to pinpoint when you first arrived.}

When the young girl’s face fell into a cute pout and she made puppydog eyes at Stacy, her new guardian-to-be laughed, then jerked when the car behind them honked and she realized the light had turned green. Hastily pushing down on the accelerator, she mock-growled, {Now, none of that! I’ve been exposed to the dreaded puppydog eyes over the last few years, and I’ve built up an immunity.}

Ranm laughed, then asked, {So when do I get a costume?}

{We’ll get you measured tomorrow. For tonight, we’ll be eating with some old friends of mine that I want you to meet.}

/\

Several hours later, Ranma growled, tugging at the hem of the skirt she was wearing as she and Stacy walked down a condominium hallway. {I thought you said I wouldn’t have to wear these!} she complained.

“Speak English, Steve and Jennifer don’t speak Japanese. And no, I said you wouldn’t have to wear them _very often_ ,” Stacy replied. “I wouldn’t have wasted money buying them for you if you weren’t going to be wearing them at all. Jeans or slacks will work for school and you can avoid most events that would call for dressing up by just claiming to be a tomboy that isn’t interested in them, but there’s still going to be the rare occasion that you need to look your best.”

“And eating alone with friends is one of those times?” Ranma asked.

“Not normally, no, but this time there’s someone you’ll be meeting that I want absolutely certain you’re a girl — she isn’t the best, yet, at keeping secrets,” Stacy said, then paused in front of a door. “We’re here, so please get that snarl off your face.”

Ranma rolled her eyes but complied with Stacy’s request as the blonde pushed the doorbell. The pair heard the sound of approaching feet, then the door opened to reveal a nicely dressed brunette in her late twenties. “Stacy, you’re on time this time!” she gasped in mock amazement, then grinned as Stacy rolled her eyes.

“I was only _really_ late once. Well, twice. No, make that ... okay, perhaps you have a point,” Stacy admitted, then continued, “Jennifer, this is Ranma Saotome, the daughter of the man that taught me how to fight and hopefully my new ward if all the paperwork goes through. Ranma, this is Jennifer Dansville. She married my best friend from college and has become one of my best friends since then.”

Ranma started to bow then froze, looking a bit uncertain, and Jennifer instantly waved the two inside the condo and closed the door. “Come in, come in, this time it’s Steve that’s late, he’ll be here in about a half hour. But in the meantime — Kat! Your Momma Stacy’s here!” she called out.

Instantly the sound of running feet was heard through the floor above, and a young girl, about five or six years old, came barreling down the spiral staircase at the end of the hallway that emptied into the front room the three women were standing in. Charging down the hall, she slammed into Stacy, embracing her in a solid hug. “Mommy! It’s been _forever_ since you’ve been here! And you missed my recital!”

“I know, dearheart, I’m really sorry, I wish I could come by more often, I really do,” Stacy said softly, putting her arms around the small girl’s shoulders. “But your mommy and daddy take good care of you and I visit when I can. Why don’t we go out for ice cream this weekend?”

Kat nodded, her face pressed against Stacy’s stomach, and for a few minutes the two simply stood in their mutual embrace. Finally, Stacy sighed and gently pushed Kat away. “Kat, there’s someone I want you to meet,” she said. She turned the girl to face Ranma, and the redhead gazed down at the child — lithe, brown haired, Ranma would have known her for Stacy’s daughter anywhere, but there was something else, something familiar ... and were those slight epicanthic folds at the corners of her eyes?

Stunned, Ranma lifted wide eyes to gaze at Stacy, and the older woman nodded slightly at the question in her eyes that she was too stunned to ask. “Ranma, this is Katherine Danville, the adopted daughter of Steve and Jennifer. Kat, I’d like you to meet your sister, Ranma Saotome.”

“My sister?” Kat questioned. She looked Ranma over and then frowned up at Stacy. “She’s awfully old for you to be her mommy,” she insisted.

Stacy laughed. “I should have said your half-sister,” she replied. “You have the same father.”

“Oh,” Kat said, then looked at Ranma. “I don’t remember my first daddy, and Daddy and my two mommies don’t know anything and Mommy Jen just told me today that he died. Can you tell me about him?”

Voice blocked by a sudden massive lump in her throat, Ranma nodded, smiling tremulously down at the child.

“Yay!” Kat shouted. She grabbed Ranma’s hand and pulled her toward the hallway to the spiral staircase. “Come on, we’ll go to my room so we don’t have to listen to the old folks talk, that’s always boring anyway.”

Ranma glanced at Stacey, then at her nod and whisper of “Keep it clean” allowed Kat to haul her off.

Jennifer watched the two vanish up the staircase, then said, “You know this isn’t exactly going to discourage Kat from taking those martial arts classes she’s been demanding?”

Stacy shrugged, smiling softly as she continued gazing at the now empty hallway. “If she takes after me at all, you might as well give it up — she’s going to nag until she gets them.”

“And she takes after you a lot,” Jennifer said with a sigh. “Come on, you can tell me all about it while I finish getting dinner ready.”


	9. One Pawn Down

DarkAngel crouched on the Blackridge Hospital fire escape, lockpicks working at the closed window. After a few minutes, she nodded in satisfaction and cracked open the window. Quietly, she called out, “Stevenson, you can relax, it’s DarkAngel.” She had been happy to learn Stevenson was the patrolman on duty that night, she’d known the man from the beginning of her vigilante career — an amiable bear of a man, lacking the imagination needed to rise in the ranks, but solid and satisfied with a job he did well.

“Come on in, slowly,” she heard in reply. The blonde vigilante pushed the window the rest of the way open and slowly slipped through into the dark room, lit only by city light through the window. She hastily closed her eyes as a flashlight clicked on and shone on her face for a moment, then reopened them when it clicked off and turned to close lock the window behind her.

“So, what is Hudson City’s most popular wanted woman doing here?” the uniformed cop standing by the room’s door asked as he rehostlered his pistol. “It’s not like you can question this asshole even if he wasn’t out from painkillers, not with his broken jaw. You _did_ know about the broken jaw, right?”

“Yes, I did, thanks,” DarkAngel replied, smiling at Stevenson’s usual greeting. “No, I’m just here to help you wait out the night. Something about this case doesn’t feel right, and I suspect this is the place to be.”

The cop stiffened. “You know something we don’t?” he asked as he loosened his pistol in its holster.

DarkAngel shook her head. “No, I don’t _know_ anything. But what’s happened so far — the murder of the Stanson sisters in Japan, Davenport here, the kidnapping of Manning and murder of her guard detail — they’re too much, too brutal. However tough they talk, the last thing organized crime organizations want to do is get into pissing matches with the law, it’s bad for business. That applies to the Yakuza as much as the rest of them, however much they may boast of their honor. I think someone’s playing games. And if that’s the case, Isamu, here, may be a piece someone wants to take away from us.”

“Makes sense,” Stevenson agreed and waved toward one of the room’s chairs. “Well, I could always use some company to wait out the shift. Have a seat.”

“Why, _thank_ you, kind sir,” DarkAngel responded lightly, and startled a soft chuckle from the policeman at the sight of the caped and masked woman in a dark bodystocking curtseying before she took her seat, carefully making certain she could bail out of the chair at a moment’s notice.

Slowly the hours passed by in companionable silence as the two waited out the night, the only noises the footsteps of the occasional nightshift nurse walking past the room. DarkAngel sank into a light trance she had developed from the one Genma had taught her for replacing sleep, one that was much less effective but kept her aware of her surroundings even as she ceased to be aware of the minutes and hours passing by.

Early in the morning, the soft sound of footsteps approached the room yet again, and something about them caught her attention, pulled her from her trance. She listened intently, frowning slightly. The sound was off, somehow. Stevenson had caught something, too, straightening in his own chair off to the side. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she realized what was bothering her — the shoes worn by whoever was approaching didn’t have the same soles as those worn by the hospital nurses that had been passing by all night!

The blonde vigilante was already rising from her seat when the door slammed open, and the male figure in the doorway swung an arm into the room. DarkAngel caught a glimpse of a small, round object arcing toward the bed and dove across the room, tackling Stevenson just as he was rising to his feet and bringing them both down in a pile on the floor even as the room shook from the grenade exploding over the bed.

Rolling to her feet, DarkAngel whirled toward the door and was unsurprised to find it empty. “Stevenson, you okay?” she called out as she darted up to the door.

“I’m fine, go!”

At the shouted assurance, she dove through the door. No gunshots. She glanced both ways down the corridor as she rose from her roll — the corridor was empty. But the stairwells were too far away for the assassin to have gotten that far so quickly, and the branching corridor led past the nurse’s station, so — DarkAngel raced back into the room, past a Stevenson checking over the bloody ruin on the bed, and over to the window she’d come in through. Throwing it open, she looked down just in time to see a man wearing nurse’s scrubs slipping through another window one floor down.

With a sigh, she turned back into the room. “Isamu?” she asked.

“Dead,” Stevenson replied, then looked up and waved in the nurse that peeked around the door. “It’s safe,” he assured the young woman.

DarkAngel cursed softly, getting a raised eyebrow from Stevenson as the nurse double-checked the body. “The assassin ducked into another room and headed for the fire escape, used it to reach a window down one. He was dressed in nurse’s scrubs, he’ll just walk out of any of four exits and be long gone by the time more police get here to close off the hospital. I’ll try to stake out a couple exits, but it’s a fifty-fifty chance.” With that, she stepped through the window onto the fire escape and headed for the roof.

/\

An hour later, DarkAngel sighed as she gazed down from where she crouched by the edge of the hospital roof at the numerous police cars in the parking lot, their red and blue lights flashing. She’d stayed well beyond their arrival, on the off chance that the assassin might have been held up within the hospital and tried to make his escape after the cops had arrived and stirred things up, but if so he’d slipped out of one door when she’d been covering another.

Rising and stepping back from the edge, she pulled her swingline from its grip-case and strode to the opposite side of the building. Even in February, morning wasn’t all that far away. As she swung away into the dark, she wondered how Ranma would react to the fact that one of those involved in his father’s murder was dead.

/oOo\

Stacy quietly let herself into the apartment, and tiptoed through the dark toward the hallway to the bedrooms, only to pause when she noticed the male figure standing at the large living room window. With a sigh, she abandoned her stealth and walked over to join Ranma.

“Are you always out this late?” Ranma asked quietly.

Stacy shrugged. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Aren’t you up a little late? Surely, you’ve made your call to Tokyo by now.”

Ranma shrugged. “Yeah, hours ago. I had trouble sleeping. So what’s the plan for today?”

“There’s no point in trying to get you signed up for school until the paperwork comes through for your citizenship and I’m appointed your guardian, but we can see about getting you measured for a costume and maybe hang out with Kat a little this afternoon,” Stacy replied.

She hesitated for a moment, then added, “Ranma, I suspect you plan on keeping a little list of those that were involved in your father’s death — heaven knows _I_ did after I was raped. Well, there’s one name that you won’t need to include, the man you put in the hospital. He’s dead, someone tossed a grenade onto his bed.”

Ranma turned to stare at his new guardian. “Wow, the Yakuza play rough,” he said. “If that’s how they treat their people that fail, I’m sure glad Dad turned down the offers from them in Japan. And here I thought they just demanded a finger!”

“Oh, Isamu didn’t fail,” Stacy absentmindedly replied, then froze. “Isamu _didn’t_ fail,” she repeated. “Davenport had to be the target, his girlfriend is your typical socialite — her only claim to fame in this mess is that she was dating him and had her life saved by you and Genma. So why kill Isamu? It’s not like the Yakuza don’t have a number of their street thugs in jail already, they keep their mouths shut, rule their little piece of territory in the prisons, and have positions waiting for them when they get out.”

“So maybe someone besides Isamu’s boss ordered the hit,” Ranma offered, watching her intently.

“But that doesn’t make sense, either,” Stacy protested. “Isamu’s a low-level gurentai, one step up from the bottom rung on the ladder. The assassin that carried out the hit knew his business. It’s like ... like a World War II general detailing a sniper to hunt down a corporal. What’s the point? There’s always someone ready to step into the corporal’s shoes. Unless,” she continued, “there’s something important about this particular corporal, something beyond his job description. Something he knew, most likely, that whoever ordered the hit didn’t want getting out.”

She gazed thoughtfully at her future ward, then shook herself out of her introspection. “But thinking about that will have to wait, let’s see if we can’t get a few hours sleep before we have to start a new day.”

Ranma seemed to shrink slightly, but nodded. “Sure, why not?” he said, the cheer in his voice sounding distinctly forced to Stacy’s ear, and headed for his bedroom, followed by a blonde frowning slightly in concern.


	10. Nerima Breakout

Nabiki yawned mightily as she walked down the sidewalk toward Furinkan High School, and Akane glanced at her older sister, her eyes sharpening as she noticed Nabiki’s bleary expression, bags under her eyes, the exhausted slouch and plodding walk of the normally energetic girl. “Nabiki, you okay?” she asked concernedly.

“Oh, you’re finally rejoining the real world?” Nabiki asked, eyebrow rising in surprise at the younger sister that had barely noticed anything outside of her own head ever since Ranma’s call the previous afternoon, and the good and bad news he had to tell them — Kuno’s Wish would fade in time, but it would be years and he couldn’t return before then.

Akane blushed. “Just been wondering about what that idiot’s up to without us to watch over him, that’s all,” she asserted breezily. “And don’t change the subject, you look terrible. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Nabiki replied. “Just been having a little trouble sleeping the last few nights, that’s all.” _Who’d think that in this day and age, news would move so_ slow _?_ she thought, fighting the urge to snarl as she reflected that once again, television had lied — police investigations moved a _lot_ slower than on the TV shows. Then she sighed as Akane accepted her answer and seemed to just fade out again, thoughts turning inward. Nabiki had hoped that with Ranma calling home again his fiancée would come out of her funk, but if anything it was worse than before.

Then the pair turned through the gates onto the school grounds and the Ice Queen of Furinkan High felt her heart freeze in truth at the sight before them. “Akane, eyes forward, now!” she hissed urgently even as she scrabbled at her school bag. _Video camera, where is it?_

“What?” Akane asked irritably as she glanced up. Looking toward the school entrance, her step faltered at the sight of a mob of boys in various sports uniforms and carrying the tools of their chosen games. For the first time since the week Ranma had arrived in Nerima, the Hentai Horde had reformed.

A shout went up from the Horde at the sight of the two girls. Even as Nabiki pulled her video camera out her bag, she winced at the answering shriek of outrage from her younger sister as Akane dropped her own bag and charged at the fast-approaching mob. Discarding her bag, Nabiki ran to the side and brought up the camera just as Akane slammed into the Horde. The middle Tendo paled as the boys’ shouts turned to screams of pain and fright, but kept the camera steady as the mob exploded in all directions, those still able racing away in panic, the rest lying unconscious wherever Akane’s blows had tossed them or moaning as they cradled broken bones. A panting Akane stood in the epicenter, fists clenched.

“Such fire!” came the voice that was quickly becoming the most hated sound in Nabiki’s world, and she stopped recording as she turned to face Upperclassman Tatewaki Kuno with a savage grin. “Such passion!” the tall Kendoist continued, his handheld bokken resting on a shoulder. “Surely the malign influence of the accursed Saotome has —” And then Akane was on him, her expression calm with anger gone cold, the Hammer glowing red in her hands, and Kuno was frantically backpedaling as he parried swing after swing coming in fast enough that Nabiki could barely see them.

_Damn, she’s gotten faster, she might actually take him!_ Nabiki thought as she jolted into a run toward the dueling pair. “Akane, enough!” she shouted as she came up behind them, and grabbed an arm with both hands when Akane glanced towards her. “Kuno, get out of here, now, or I let her go!” she shouted at her classmate.

“I see the foul sorcerer’s influence continues unabated,” Kuno said, straightening from his crouch. “I shall seek for a way to break the spell, even as I did with my pigtailed goddess that he has so foully stolen away in my moment of triumph.” With that, he turned and stalked toward the school entrance even as behind him Akane tossed Nabiki about in an attempt to shake her off.

“Let go of me! I’ll —” she shouted before Nabiki slapped a hand across her mouth.

“No threats,” Nabiki urgently whispered, “not after what you just did to the Horde.” Akane froze, and slowly turned both of them around so she could see behind them, her eyes widening at the sight. Nabiki could feel her starting to shake and released her.

As Akane dropped to her knees, Yuka and Sayuri ran up from where they had watched everything at a safe distance. “Sayuri, call emergency and then get the school nurse,” Nabiki snapped before the newcomers had a chance to say anything. “Yuka, you have some first aid training, right?” Yuka nodded even as Sayuri pulled out her cell phone. “Good, you’re with me. We need to check the unconscious ones.” Then, when Yuka simply stared at her, added forcefully, “Move!”

/oOo\

As Kasumi walked into the family room, Nabiki looked up from where she knelt at the table. “How’s little sis?” she asked.

Kasumi sighed as she knelt by her sister. “She’s badly shaken. The tea I gave her should help her sleep. Where’s Father?”

“Hiding in his room, where else?” Nabiki replied bitterly.

Kasumi grimaced, but didn’t reprove her sister for her disrespect. Instead, she asked, “So, how much trouble are we in?”

“Serious trouble, big sis, but not the type you’re probably thinking of,” Nabiki said, slumping. “Legally, we’re covered. I turned over a copy of the video I recorded to the police, between that and testimony from the students about how this is a resumption rather than a first time, and with none of the Horde dead — a special miracle, that — they shouldn’t press charges, against Akane at least. And with the copy I kept clearly showing the Horde attacking her, we shouldn’t need to worry about lawsuits from the parents of the injured students.”

“Then what is the problem?” Kasumi asked, confused.

“The problem is Kuno,” Nabiki growled. “After I pulled Akane off him, he threatened to find a way to ‘break the spell’ he thinks Saotome’s cast on her. And with his pile of money, he probably will — he found the Wishing Sword, after all. Of course, since there’s no spell who knows what it’ll do?”

“Oh, my!” Kasumi’s hands flew to her mouth, and she stared at Nabiki in shock. “This is terrible! Akane can’t stay here!”

“Agreed,” Nabiki said with a sigh. “But it’s going to be tough to get her out of here, too — at least, unfollowed. Kuno seems to have learned something from Ranma’s disappearance, I think we’re being watched and nobody owes me a favor big enough to deal with that.” Suddenly she stiffened, eyes losing focus, then broke out in a broad grin. “But we aren’t the only people involved, and there’s people that might think they owe _Ranma_ a big one.”

/\

Tokyo Super Squad headquarters, how may we help you?” Maki carefully suppressed a yawn as she took the next call in the queue. She had thought when she had landed a job handling incoming calls for the public phone number of the premier superhero team in all Japan that she was looking at the most exciting job of her life, sending the team word of their lifesaving missions. The truth had turned our very much otherwise. She had understood the good public relations in having a line open to the public. She had even understood that her job would consist of sorting the wheat from the chaff. What she hadn’t understood was just how much chaff there would be. Then she noticed that the latest call was coming in from a pay phone, and straightened in her seat.

“ _This is Tendo Nabiki, and I’m calling about the Stanson sisters case, specifically what happened a few days ago in Hudson City. I need to speak with one of the Squad. Pass on the names Saotome Genma and Saotome Ranma, and if they want to follow up have them contact me.”_

“I will pass on your request immediately,” Maki responded quickly, her lassitude vanishing at the mention of the murdered Americans. “I see you are calling from a pay phone, how are we to contact you?”

“ _Have whoever responds call my cell phone, and say that he’s Yuuta-san calling about the pictures. Then I can call back from a pay phone to make arrangements.”_

Maki’s eyebrow quirked at the odd arrangement, but she readily took down the cell number and again assured her caller that she would promptly pass on her request.

/oOo\

“Tendo Nabiki?”

The pageboy-haired girl sitting at a table in the middle of an empty food court turned at the question, fighting to suppress her fear at the sight of the strange man and woman approaching her. _Damn, it looks like Kuno’s thugs have found me, I thought I wasn’t being followed,_ she thought to herself as she put on her Ice Queen persona. “Yes, I’m Tendo Nabiki,” she said coldly. “And you are ... ?”

“We’re here about a phone call you made earlier,” the young brown-haired woman said.

Nabiki froze, then stared intently at her. “Chrysanthemum?” she finally asked, and the woman nodded as her companion chuckled.

“It never ceases to amaze me what you can do with a change of clothes, hairstyle and makeup — I have to use my powers to come close,” he said.

Chrysanthemum shrugged. “That’s why I don’t mind having a public identity,” she tossed off lightly. “I’m not really that beautiful — not without special help and my costume to add the glamour of fame.”

Nabiki glanced back and forth between the two, then focused on the thoroughly forgettable-looking man. “You’d be Zodiac, then,” she said.

“Correct,” he replied. “May we sit down?”

“Of course,” Nabiki said coolly, though blushing as she waved them to the seats across from her.

“So,” Chrysanthemum said as the two took their seats. “I assume this is about your sister?” Chuckling at the stunned expression Nabiki was unable to keep off her face, she continued, “I already knew of the Saotomes, I put Genma-san on our emergency contact list —”

“ _Serious_ emergency contact list,” Zodiac added, and his companion elbowed him in the side.

“Be respectful of the dead,” she chided. “He may have been a thief and a glutton, but he would have stepped up to the plate if we needed him — and you can’t fault the way he died.”

“No, I can’t, sorry,” an abashed Zodiac agreed, and Chrysanthemum turned back to Nabiki.

“As I was saying, I already knew about the Saotomes and even a little of what was happening in Nerima.”

“Of course, you’re a martial artist,” Nabiki said in dawning realization.

“Right, though purists like the Saotomes might consider my use of mystical powers something of a cheat,” Chrysanthemum agreed, nodding.  “I may not be as active in the martial arts community since I joined the team, but I still have contacts.  So when your call came in, I pulled what records I could to update myself and got the police report on this morning’s brawl at Furinkan High. Why don’t you fill us in on what the police don’t know?”

/\

“ ... and that’s when I decided to call you,” Nabiki finished, her heart sinking at the uncomfortable looks on the faces of the two superheroes.

“Great, another budding supervillain with more money than he knows what to do with,” Zodiac muttered.

“Nabiki-san, you aren’t asking us to deal with Kuno, are you?” Chrysanthemum hesitantly asked. “Because if so, we can’t help you. He hasn’t actually done anything illegal — at least that we could prove in court, the justice system doesn’t deal well with geasses and spells, yet. And we can’t keep watch on him waiting for him to act, either, that could have us accused of stalking and harassment, and his family has some of the best lawyers in the country on retainer.”

_Okay, Plan B._ “No, nothing like that,” Nabiki assured them. “What I need are two things, a new legal identity for Akane and whatever she needs to live in America, and a way to break free of Kuno’s watchers. Oh, and a plane ticket to Hudson City. Surely the nation’s honor in the Stanson sisters mess covers this?”

The two superheroes exchanged glances. “Breaking her free of Kuno’s spies is easy enough,” Zodiac opined and, glancing around the currently empty food court, abruptly shifted into a mirror image of Akane, clothes and all, and back. “But I don’t know about the legal identity. Chrysanthemum, you’re the team’s Executive Officer, what do you say?”

Chrysanthemum slowly nodded. “I think we can probably swing it. As Nabiki-san says, it’s a matter of the nation’s honor.” Shooting a sharp look back over at the middle Tendo, she asked, “Do you really believe that?”

Nabiki hesitated, but under the older woman’s searching gaze finally shrugged even as she fought back a smirk. _Careful, now is_ not _the time to let them know what you think of the showboaters._ “No, not really, I’m too practical to believe in honor, at least that way,” she said quietly. “But I thought _you_ would, and that’s what matters.”

Chrysanthemum nodded. “True. Very well, I’ll set things up and we’ll give you a call. Same method of contact?”

“Sure,” Nabiki agreed. “Just use a different person so the voice isn’t the same, and ... Ishio-san for the name.”

Chrysanthemum and Zodiac nodded their agreement, and rose to leave. “Just don’t do anything to draw Kuno’s attention to you instead of your sister,” Zodiac warned.

“Not a problem, I’ll go right on being my usual mercenary self,” Nabiki assured them, and with an exchange of farewells the two superheroes strode away. Nabiki watched them go, then glanced at her watch. _Ranma will have called already, I’ll have to wait until this evening to call back. Mustn’t make it too late, though, or they might have already left for the morning — I suppose Ranma won’t mind an early wakeup call if Akane’s involved._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from a concept in the study of animal species of the breakout population — the explosion of a species' population when a major control is suddenly removed. There's some evidence that just this happened to both the American bison and the passenger pigeon when European plagues swept through the native peoples, killing as many as nine out of ten.


	11. Chapter 11

Bluejay — Linda Anderson when she wasn’t wearing her light blue and white winged battlesuit — did her best to ignore the churning in her gut as she silently glided through the nighttime sky toward her target. She did her best to tell herself that this night was no different than any of the previous raids she’d made since she’d “reacquired” the suit she’d developed from her last employer after being fired when her project was shut down due to cost overruns. _Right, this was just one more raid against the Man, sticking it to the oppressors of the People while gaining what you need to live the life you deserve, and helping out a sister in the process. Right, girl, you keep telling yourself that._ As she scanned the roof of her target for a safe and hidden landing place, she tried to ignore the whisper in the back of her mind that breaking into the headquarters of one of the more powerful yakuza clans in Hudson City was _not_ the same as raiding the penthouse of a fat cat Captain of Industry. But she couldn’t keep from wishing for the first time that she hadn’t removed the built-in weapons from her battlesuit.

Quietly landing on the snow-covered roof of the multi-story building — practically a skyscraper for Little Tokyo, though of course puny compared to districts mostly given over to corporations instead of residences and family businesses — the thief-sidelining-as-vigilante froze, waiting: five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour, no alarm. Finally relaxing, she pulled the tools of her trade out of their pouches on her belt, moved to the opposite side of the roof. Using the claws built into her boots to keep herself on the roof, she looked through the windows until she found a working office. She quickly but efficiently checked it for alarms and defenses, and smiled when all she found was a basic alarm system, easily bypassed by one with her skills. The trend continued: in spite of the number of fliers — both superheroes and supervillains — people in Hudson City seemed to instinctively equate height with safety. Maybe because of the dearth of fliers in the city itself?

Window open, she slipped inside, crept over to the door across the room and listened for several minutes, then cracked open the door when she heard nothing. Finding the corridor beyond empty, she closed and braced the door and hooked a flash-bang to it, then slipped over to the room’s other door that turned out to lead to a reception room of some sort, and also braced and booby-trapped it. Her back secure, she turned to the computer on the office desk and brought it up — yup, the codes she’d acquired got her in, flashdrive plugged in, and ... her personal virus in and waiting for the next time anyone used the network for financial transactions. Now, to see if she could find anything about the Stanson sisters and Deborah Manning....

/\

Bluejay jerked upright as the sound of several people entering the adjacent room came through the shared door. Hastily bringing up the digital clock in her helmet’s display, she fought back a curse — she had lost track of time and been there _much_ longer than usual for one of her raids, and all for nothing — many of the files had been in Japanese (she was still kicking herself over her surprise), and even in those that were in English not a hint of information on any of the girls, murdered or kidnapped. And what was someone doing up at this time of night, anyway?

“Well, Oyabun, ya called us and we got here as fast as we could. So what’s up?” Bluejay frowned as she activated her recorder. There was nothing cultured about that man’s voice, and it was in English, and very, very American.

“As crude and direct as always,” a much more cultured male voice responded. (Bluejay gritted her teeth at the sound.) “But useful in this case — it is late, and the situation is ... urgent. You have heard about the case of the Stanson sisters?”

“Yeah, we heard that ya killed ‘em in Japan, and then offed the prosecutor assigned ta the case. Ain’t that a bit over the top for a couple a’ whores? There’s always more where they came from.”

“You are indeed correct, that it is ‘over the top’, which is why we didn’t do either — someone else carried out the acts in our name and we are being blamed, which is where you come in. Official focus we can deal with, and DarkAngel isn’t a serious threat in this situation — some bakuto and gurentai in the hospital for a time, nothing we cannot handle. But the Harbinger of Justice is another matter, and this situation seems to have drawn his attention. He has attacked two of our operations in the past two days, no survivors.”

“And you expect us ta stop him? Forget that, we don’t have no death wish.”

“No, I do not expect the remnants of your motorcycle gang to stop him. But you do not need to — unlike Renegade, he is a careful man, avoiding large numbers of opponents and recently changed situations. I simply need your men to supplement my own security, to both increase numbers and modify the facts on the ground in an obvious way. He should back off at that point, at least long enough for me to deal with this and perhaps point him at another target.”

The conversation became unintelligible as American voices talked back and forth and over each other for a bit, then: “Okay, for three times what ya offered, ya got a deal — after all, the Harbinger might not play by his own rules. So where do ya want us ta head to?”

After a long pause, the cultured voice said, “That is acceptable. I have a map in the other room, it has the locations. I will have the local managers notified that you are on the way.”

_Oh,_ crap _, I’ve definitely overstayed my welcome!_ Bluejay whirled back to the desktop computer, fingers flashing across the keyboard as she activated the program designed to wipe all record of her activities.

The doorknob rattled, and shuddered against its brace. “Odd, the door is unlocked and it doesn’t seem stuck, but it won’t open,” she heard the cultured voice say.

“What? Get outta the way!” Even as she yanked the flashdrive from its socket and hit the power button to shut the computer down, the door crashed open and her arm-covered headfirst dive through the window was backlit by the flashbang’s thundering explosion. Twisting in midair, she extended her wings, swooped out of the shower of window glass, hit the booster pack, and thundered away.

/\

Miyamiji Junzo, oyabun of the Miyamiji-kai in Hudson City, lowered his arms and blinked his eyes clear of the assault of pure light from the flashbang as shouts of shock from his guests filled the room and the biker that had kicked open the door staggered back, hands over his eyes. Even as the sparkles faded somewhat, one of the leather-clad bikers — their leader “Big Eddie” — pulled the biker that had kicked open the door out of the way and rushed through, pulling out a hand cannon as he did.

Junzo motioned to the one of his bodyguards that hadn’t been looking at the door when the flashbang went off, and followed Big Eddie into the adjoining office. He glanced about at the room, surprised to find no signs of a search, then joined gang leader at the window just in time to push the biker’s gun up, off target from the flying figure rocketing away.

“What the hell are ya doing?” Big Eddie shouted, rounding on his host, only to freeze when he found the muzzle of the bodyguard’s pistol pressed up under his chin.

Junzo shrugged. “There is no harm in whomever that was escaping, and perhaps some good. All he would have overheard was that we had nothing to do with illegal activities, after all. I _want_ that word to be spread about. And so should you, it lessens the chance that your men might actually face the Harbinger.”

Big Eddie carefully stepped back, then rubbed at his throat at the spot the muzzle had ground into when the bodyguard failed to follow him. “Yeah, I can see that. And I was out a’ line, so I won’t hold it against your dog. The map?”

The oyabun turned to the desk, rummaged in a drawer, then handed his guard a folded up piece of paper. “The map details how many men to send to each location.”

“Right,” Big Eddie said as he stuck the paper in a pocket inside his leather jacket. “All right, boys, let’s head out!”

/oOo\

Stacy braked her sports car to a stop in front of the main entrance to Heaven’s Gate Mall. Leaning over, she unlocked the passenger door for the redheaded Ranma walking over from where she’d been enjoying the bright afternoon sunlight by the mall doors, then started the car rolling forward again as soon as Ranma got in. “So, what did Sensei have to say?” she asked as the teenager fastened her seatbelt, an eyebrow going up at the faint signs of another bruise on Ranma’s jaw.

“He said he might know someone that could take in Akane,” Ranma replied. “Whatever else, he can put her up in his own home until something else is arranged. I’ll let Nabiki know tonight. So, what now? Everything taken care of at work?”

“I’ve put out the immediate fires, it buys me a few more days to focus on getting you settled before I have to get back to work, maybe up to a week,” Stacy said with a shrug. “But right now, I’ve gotten word that your costume’s ready.” Ranma shifted in her seat, and Stacy glanced over to catch a grimace on the teenager’s face. “Something wrong?”

“Do I have to stand naked in that tube again?” Ranma growled.

Stacy shook her head. “No, that was to get your measurements, Jason shouldn’t need to scan you again.”

“Good!” Ranma said, then slouched in her seat muttering something about perverts.

/\

“I don’t know,” Ranma said uncertainly as she looked over the dark blue and black costume on the dummy. “I guess I can live with the tight pants —”

“Those aren’t pants,” the shabbily dressed, rather round redheaded man standing next to Ranma and Stacy broke in to say. “It’s a single piece like DarkAngel’s, it just looks like a two-piece costume.”

“Whatever,” Ranma tossed off with a shrug. “Like I said, the pants are okay, and I guess I can live with the feather pattern across the shoulders and down the back — the collar helps — but does the open vee in the front have to go all the way to the belt?”

“You said you could handle cold —”

“I’m not thinking of the temperature, I’m thinking about what I’d look like when I wear that as a girl,” Ranma growled.

“Okay, so it’s a little revealing,” Jason said soothingly. “But remember, it has to fit properly in both your forms — the computer model says that the vee has to be there for the top to provide proper support when you ... shrink. So why don’t you try it on, see if it works the way the models say it should?”

“You don’t know?” the Ranma shouted.

The hi-tech tailor shrugged. “I don’t exactly have dummies that can shrink and enlarge on command, the only way to really test it is on you.”

Ranma glanced over at her presumptive guardian, and her shoulders slumped when Stacy simply nodded. “Oh, all right, get it off the dummy and I’ll try it.”

“There’s one waiting for you in the dressing room — your spare,” Jason said, motioning toward the nearest door. “The instructions for putting it on are on a card.” With a sigh, Ranma left to change.

As soon as the door closed behind the teenager, one of the other doors opened and a modestly dressed attractive young woman with almost shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes stepped into the room. With a sigh of relief, Stacy forced herself to relax from the shock of an added visitor. “I’m a little surprised to find you here — normally Jason gives private screenings,” she said with forced nonchalance, glancing at their host out of the corner of her eye. “I wasn’t aware that he knew we know each other.”

“I didn’t,” Jason said with a shrug. “Bluejay convinced me she knew who you were, said she had something important for you. And you know my policy, I couldn’t simply pass it along myself. I’m stretching things as it is.”

After a moment, Stacy shrugged, then turned back to the new arrival. “This will have to be quick, I’m in the middle of something.”

“Yes, I know,” her uninvited guest replied uncomfortably. “Sorry to butt in like this, but I found out something last night I thought you should know, and I can’t give it to the police — they wouldn’t believe it from an anonymous source and I can hardly give it to them as Bluejay. Jason says I only have a minute or so, not long enough to explain, so here it is.” She offered Stacy a flashdrive that the other woman took reflexively. “Check out the file labeled ‘Conversation’, it’s a transcript of something I overheard. I don’t really have much more to add, but I’ll be on top of the Stableford office building at midnight if you want to talk.” Before Stacy could respond, Bluejay turned and left.

Stacy was still staring at the door when Ranma walked back into the room. “I think I got this on right,” the redhead said, then paused when she sensed the tension. “Something happen while I was gone?”

Stacy forced herself to relax, then turned to her ward, eyebrow rising as her eyes ran over the tight black pants, blue clinging top that emphasized Ranma’s bountiful chest with the open vee to the waistline and slightly puffed sleeves, and black wrap-around mask that left only Ranma’s lower face and the red hair on the top of her head and short braid sticking out the back visible. “You look ... cute — _very_ cute. Perfect.”

Ranma stiffened. “And how is ‘cute’ perfect?” she asked in a tightly controlled voice.

“It means thugs are likely to not take you seriously, at least until your reputation overrules your appearance,” Stacy explained. “At least, that’s how it worked for me — I don’t exactly look intimidating in _my_ costume, either. But you’re only going to look like that if you get splashed, so let’s see how you look in male form. Jason, you have the hot water?”

/oOo\

Police Sergeant Amado again stared out across the city from his apartment rooftop. “Bluejay, huh? A thief, but no killer — goes out of her way to avoid it, actually. Do you believe her?” he asked the vigilante standing next to him.

DarkAngel shrugged. “I believe it happened the way Bluejay says it did. Whether it means that the Myamiji-kai really weren’t the ones that carried out the assassinations, that’s inference — the oyabun could have simply been lying to outsiders, or have a subordinate off the reservation. But if he was telling the truth, it would nicely fill in some of the missing pieces of the jigsaw.”

“Yes, it would,” the sergeant agreed. “So, if it wasn’t the Myamiji-kai, who was it?”

“Well, there’s the Hinagawa-kai,” DarkAngel said thoughtfully, “they’re the most powerful worldwide but the weakest here. Perhaps they’ve decided to change that by moving in on the Miyamiji-kai’s territory. Then there’s the Sawakiri-gumi — they’re the most powerful in the city, but so far they’ve mostly avoided the vice trade and have been focusing on continuing the weakening of the Tsukihama-gumi I started when I exposed their sokaiya ring four years ago. And those are just the obvious ones.” She shrugged. “The truth is, when it comes to suspects we have an embarrassment of riches.

“At any rate, now you know what I know, and I’ll get things rolling to make it official.”

Amado nodded. “All right, when the anonymous tip arrives I’ll pass it around and see what we come up with.”

“Good,” the blonde vigilante replied. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some training to get to.” Stepping over to the side of the building, she dove over the edge, cape flashing black and red in the rush of air from her fall. Amado stepped up to the roof edge just in time to see her land gently on the cement floor of the alley, her swingline dropping from where it had gripped a fire escape and retracting into the grip. His eyes widened when a dark-haired costumed male stepped away from a shadowed wall and joined her in her dash down the alley and out of sight. _Well,_ that’s _new,_ he mused, carefully suppressing any thought of the name “Ranma.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bluejay comes from Conquerors, Killers and Crooks by Hero Games, depowered as suggested in Dark Champions: The Animated Series, with her motivation/excuses modified a bit.


	12. Welcome to the Team

On the roof of the Stableford office building, Bluejay sat on the rim around an antenna, staring up at the star-speckled night sky, unobscured by a single cloud. Of course, this _was_ Hudson City, so there was a certain amount of haze, not like what one could see out in the country, and the _very_ upper-story burglar decided that once the Stanson sisters/Deborah Manning situation was taken care of she was going to take a break from the city, pack up and make a cross country flight to the Colorado Rockies and camp out for a few weeks. She enjoyed the life of luxury her battlesuit made possible, but she’d learned that she needed the occasional break to keep it from becoming simply the way things were.

“Nice night, isn’t it?”

Bluejay started and twisted at the greeting, slipped from her perch, and dropped to sprawl on the ice-slick roof with a clank, her head bouncing on the concrete. “Ow!” she complained, sitting up and glaring at the giggling dark-clad, masked blonde woman standing a few feet away, visible in the dim light of a low-powered light bulb over the service door — and the chuckling black and blue-clad, masked raven-haired (and well-muscled) teenaged boy standing by her side, DarkAngel’s signature gold halo on the front of his utility belt. Rising to her feet, Bluejay shrugged, and nodded toward the teenager. “Okay, you got me. So’s who’s the newbie beefcake, why isn’t he freezing with that much chest showing?”

DarkAngel fought her giggles under control. “Bluejay, this is my new partner ... Cherub.”

“Cherub?” Bluejay asked, looking over the well-muscled (if somewhat short) boy.

“Cherub,” DarkAngel repeated firmly.

Bluejay glanced slyly over at her sort of friend. “You hadn’t bothered to come up with a name before I asked, did you? Are you _really_ sure you want to go the cutesy route?”

DarkAngel grimaced. “Yeah, that was the first name that sprang to mind when I realized I was going to have a partner, and what with everything else, somehow the need to come up with something better slipped my mind,” she admitted. “As for ‘cutesy’, it’s worked well enough for me, over the years. Cherub doesn’t have my _naturally_ cute exterior, but that name will work just as well — for awhile, at least, until word spreads that ‘Cherub’ fits him about as well as ‘Mopesy’ does a pit bull.”

Bluejay chuckled, then, seeing the confused look on ‘Cherub’s’ face, started laughing. After a moment, seeing where Bluejay was looking, DarkAngel chuckled before telling the newly-christened Cherub, “I’ll explain later, though perhaps I’ll just tell you how to look it up right before taking a long drive.

“Anyway,” she continued, sobering as she turned back to the cat burglar, “Bluejay, while I’m grateful for the information you provided earlier, and so are the police, just why did you have it in the first place? The yakuza is about as far from your usual target as you could get!”

“Yes, they are,” Bluejay agreed. Turning from the DarkAngel, she looked out across the nighttime city, white-clad arms rising to hug herself beneath her slightly busty chest, the light blue wings hanging from her arms covering her lower torso and upper legs like a blanket. Quietly, she asked, “Tell me, have you ever wondered just why I target the rich fatcats?”

“Other than the fact that that’s where the easy money is without much risk, I figured you’d had the wrong professors in college,” DarkAngel admitted as she walked up beside the other woman, Cherub coming up on his mentor’s other side, the two also looking out across the city. “But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?” the blonde vigilante continued.

“You have the college part right, but not the professors,” Bluejay replied emotionlessly. “And it wasn’t me, it was my best friend growing up, Jenny. She wasn’t exactly rich and didn’t get the scholarship offers I did, so she attended a community college, where she met David Olsen, the son of the richest man in town. It never occurred to her to wonder why the son of a man with that much money was attending such a backwater college, and when he asked her on a date she accepted. He drugged and raped her.

“She reported it to the police — I insisted — and that’s when the money and influence went to work. The police bungled the investigation — deliberately, I think — so it became a case of ‘he said, she said’. And the local newspaper got involved, painted her as a money-hungry lying slut trying to shake down the ‘saintly benefactor of the community’. People believed them instead of Jenny, ran her out of town. She hung herself.”

Bluejay’s voice was shaking at the end, and DarkAngel waited until she fought herself back under control. “I’m sorry,” the vigilante finally responded softly. “So you want in?”

“Yes,” Bluejay said firmly, then hesitated for a moment before adding, “I ... I still have the weaponry I removed from my suit when I retrieved it. I could —”

“No! No,” DarkAngel repeated. “This evening, when I passed your information on to one of my police contacts, he asked where I’d gotten it. When I told him it came from you, he said ‘a thief, but no killer’. Let’s keep it that way. Besides, do you know how to use it?”

“Well ... no, not really. But it can’t be all that hard, right?”

“Oh, _hell_ , no, you aren’t reinstalling it! I’d like to live to see the end of this,” DarkAngel asserted firmly. _And I’d_ really _like to have you still alive, as well._

Bluejay grimaced, but then softly laughed. “I suppose that’s a good point,” she agreed, then sighed. “But if I don’t reinstall the guns, I’m not sure what I can do to help. I can hardly go creeping around inside buildings looking for Ms. Manning — not much flying room, and I’m not much of a brawler.”

“No, you aren’t, but you _are_ a flier,” DarkAngel said. “While I didn’t know your secret history, I _did_ guess that you’d want to help — your raid on the Myamiji-kai headquarters was rather badly out of character — and I’ve been giving it some thought.” Turning from her new ally, the black-clad blonde began to pace, hands clasped behind her back, red-trimmed black cape swirling behind her as she strode back and forth, looking like nothing so much as a college student aping a professor.

“Now —” she started, turning back, only to break off at the grins on the faces of her partner and new ally. “What?” she demanded.

“Nothing!” the two replied instantly as the grins vanished.

“Right,” she said sternly, then smiled briefly. “ _Anyway_ , Bluejay, I’ve been thinking about what you reported. The problem is that if it wasn’t the Myamiji-kai that did it there are too many other possibilities — so I’m going to leave most of it to the police and play a hunch. Isamu’s assassination has been bothering me. It lends credence to your report that the Myamiji-kai weren’t involved in Davenport’s murder and Manning’s kidnapping, at least, but if he was working for someone else, why didn’t he demand stronger police protection when he was captured? He’d have to know he’d become a target as soon as he was arrested, he would know too much. I think he got his marching orders from within the Myamiji-kai itself, that someone above him has sold out and had him killed to keep that quiet a little while longer.

“But if I’m right, that means Deborah is probably being held in one of the properties of the upper Myamiji-kai ranks, _and_ that she’s probably going to be moved soon when the traitor scuttles for the protection of whoever bought his services. The police can’t set up any intrusive surveillance — such as inside garages where she could be loaded into a van or car with tinted windows — without a warrant, so how would you like to break into some more yakuza strongholds to set up cameras?”

Bluejay stared at DarkAngel, the memory of the previous night’s ‘adventure’ — her flashbang going off behind her as she flew away at a _very_ noisy full speed, and the way her shoulderblades had crawled with the expected impact of a hail of bullets — flashing through her mind. _And just what did you think you were going to be facing if you reinstalled your battlesuit’s weaponry?_ she thought. Finally, she nodded jerkily. “Yes, I’ll do it.”

DarkAngel gazed at her for a long moment, then nodded and glanced over at her partner to find the raven-haired masked boy gazing intently at the winged super-’villain’. “Good. Cherub, get that package I left on the ledge.”

When Cherub failed to move right away, she poked him in the side. “That’s you.”

The teenager jerked, then turned away without a word. A few moments later he was back and handed a small drawstring-closed sack to Bluejay. The white-and-blue-clad burglar opened it, and pulled out a tiny, smooth, half-circle-shaped object apparently made of some sort of clear crystal. “What are these?” she asked.

“Camera lenses. Each one is linked to a different TV, just pull the adhesive off the back and stick it to a surface, and it will automatically begin transmitting. And the color will adjust to match whatever surface it’s stuck to.”

Bluejay’s eyes widened. “Who _makes_ these?” she gasped.

“Nobody on Earth, they’re off-planet tech,” DarkAngel responded offhandedly, then pulled out an earplug with a thin wire extending from it, along with a sheaf of papers. “And here’s a bit more — we need to be able to communicate while you’re setting these up, make sure we’re getting a good view, after all. The maps are of your target houses, both official interiors based on those recorded with security agencies and the exteriors including nearby buildings, along with addresses. I couldn’t think of any way to get guard routines in the short time we have available, not even exterior guards, so be careful. Oh, and don’t be surprised when the voice you hear through the earplug is male, it won’t be me — Cherub and I have our own targets to visit.”

Bluejay nodded abruptly, hesitated, then removed her helmet to rub at cheeks pale from more than just the cold before slipping the earpiece into place. Putting the helmet back on, she adjusted the wire to make sure it was by her mouth. “So, a male voice?” she asked. “You know, I’d wondered how you could be so effective on your salary; but you’re part of a team, aren’t you?”

“ _Not exactly, Ms. Bluejay. We have a mutual friend and cooperate from time to time. I’m B.P., I’ll be your partner for tonight.”_

Bluejay jerked, then said weakly, “Ah, hi, B.P., good to see ... that is, good to meet ... good to hear from you?”

B.P. chuckled in Bluejay’s ear, at the same time as DarkAngel softly laughed, then sobered. “The night isn’t getting any younger,” the blonde vigilante said. “B.P. will direct you to your first target.” Then, as Bluejay nodded jerkily and turned toward the edge of the roof, added, “And Lisa, good luck — and thanks.”

Bluejay nodded again, more naturally, smiled back at her friend, then dove over the edge of the roof and was gone.

“Okay, Ranma, what’s wrong? You weren’t exactly friendly,” DarkAngel asked as soon as the two were alone.

“St — DarkAngel, Are you sure this is a good idea, involving a civilian?” Cherub asked, stepping up beside his partner.

“She isn’t exactly a civilian,” Darkangel said, “she’s been a burglar for years, and keeps up her lifestyle rather well.”

“Easy targets,” Cherub replied dismissively. “She’s like some so-called martial artists I’ve met, that only go for the safe, sure wins.”

“True,” DarkAngel agreed, “but don’t hold it against her — she isn’t in it to challenge herself or build a rep, after all, and she’s stepping up to the plate when it really matters. But you’re right, she isn’t a fighter like you — or even like me,” she added, grimacing at the memory of the one time the two had sparred. “That was another reason I didn’t want her to reinstall her weaponry, right now her instinctual reaction when shooting starts is to run and that’s the way I want it to stay. But she is _very_ sneaky and knows security systems at least as well as I do if not better, and we need the help — without her, you and I would spend so much time getting everywhere we need covered that Deborah might be moved before we get a chance to know about it.

“Now come on, we have our own homes to visit, and the night isn’t getting any younger.”


	13. Nerima Showdown

Nabiki sighed with relief as she walked through the front gate into the family compound. She’d survived another day sharing a classroom with an increasingly suspicious Kuno. There’d been no way that Akane could return to school with her stalker on the grounds, but there’d also been no way to avoid attending herself — her delusional classmate was suspicious enough, having _both_ sisters drop out would have raised a red flag that would almost certainly have spurred him into motion before the Tokyo Super Squad was ready.

_Not that Kasumi’s exactly had it easy at home dealing with Akane, the way little sis keeps swinging from self-loathing because she almost gave those Hentai Horde assholes what they deserve to ranting about how it’s all Kuno’s fault. Toss in waiting for the Kuno attack that doesn’t come and it must be exhausting. And Father has been no help at all, of course._

“I’m home!” she called as she stepped through the front door, reaching down to change her school shoes for house slippers.

“Nabiki!” Kasumi called from the kitchen (a place, it occurred to the mercenary Tendo, where her older sister seemed to be spending more time than usual, since the Saotomes had left). Seconds later, the eldest sister hurried down the hallway, her usual placid smile belied by the dark circles under her eyes.

 _Scratch ‘must be’ exhausting, make that ‘is’,_ Nabiki thought, feeling her own anger churning in her gut for what was happening to her family. “Big sis, everything all right while I was gone?” she asked.

“As good as could be expected,” Kasumi replied. “There was a phone call for you a few minutes ago, some woman named Okichi that needs to talk to you about a loan.”

Nabiki fought to keep herself from tensing, even if only Kasumi could see her. The box of Akane’s belongings she’d arranged during their second meeting to send to the Tokyo Super Squad headquarters along with an address to forward it to must have arrived and been sent on, and now it was time for Akane to make her escape.

/\

Akane looked up from the schoolwork Sayuri and Yuka had dropped off the previous day when Nabiki knocked on her door.

Nabiki raised an eyebrow at the sight of the open textbook Akane had on her desk. “Schoolwork? Isn’t that a bit pointless?” she asked.

Akane shrugged tiredly. “It’s something to do. And if it takes long enough before I leave, turning in some work will help hide what’s going on.”

Nabiki’s other eyebrow went up. “Wow, planning ahead, I’m shocked!” Akane shot to her feet, chair falling back and her face going red, and her sister stepped back and raised her hands. “Whoa, easy! I was just kidding!” she said hastily. “Actually, it was a good idea, really.”

Akane closed her eyes, body tense as she fought for control. Finally, she opened them again to glare suspiciously at Nabiki. “Really?” she growled.

“Yes, really,” Nabiki assured her. “Fortunately, it isn’t necessary — it’s time.”

Akane’s eyes widened, then she whirled for the bookbag by her bed that she’d packed days before with what she’d need for the flight to Hudson City. “Great, let’s go!”

“Right, after you,” Nabiki agreed, waving Akane toward the door. “Say your goodbyes to Kasumi and Father, and we’ll be off.”

Akane hurried from the room, Nabiki ambling behind her. The middle Tendo waited until her younger sister disappeared down the stairs, then pulled out her cell phone and hit the speed dial. “Hey, Sasuke, I have some information for your master, but it’s going to cost him ... a lot.” ... “Oh, he’ll want this tidbit, Little sis is on the move.” ... “Oh, no, not until my bank account gets the charge, call it five times the general offer he announced.” ... “Not a yen less. When I see the payment in my account, I’ll let you know where — not before.”

 _Okay, that should do it,_ she thought as she hit the ‘end’ button and started down the stairs after Akane. _It’ll take Kuno a little while to catch up, especially since Sasuke will be following us, and we’re a moving target. By the time he does, the switch will be made. And after that ..._ A vicious grin spread across the mercenary Tendo’s face. _After that, I can count on Kuno being Kuno._

/\

The plain if somewhat pretty brown-haired woman Nabiki recognized from her first meeting with two of the Tokyo Super Squad looked up as Nabiki approached the same table where she’d met them then, Akane at her side.

“So, Okichi,” Nabiki said, pulling out a chair and sitting without bothering to wait for an invitation, “the arrangements made?”

Chrysanthemum nodded even as an eyebrow rose. Her eyes started to lift to look over Nabiki’s shoulder, but paused, shifted back to Nabiki when the middle Tendo tapped gently on the metal table top’s surface.

“All taken care of, one ticket for Melbourne, then a bus ride into the Outback,” the out of uniform superhero said, then motioned to Akane, still standing uncertainly to the side, to have a seat. “At least _you_ have some manners. Please, sit.”

Akane started to sit, then caught her sister’s subtle motion toward the restroom doors. Taking a deep breath and blushing slightly, she said, “Actually, I’ll be right back.” Glancing at Nabiki, she murmured, “The letters I gave you to pass out to my friends?” Nabiki’s nod was barely perceptible, but Akane gave her a wistful smile and turned away.

As Nabiki watched her sister hurry toward the restroom doors, she fought back a chuckle as she remembered Akane’s reaction when she learned that Zodiac — a man! — would be switching places with her in a women’s restroom. Nabiki had known pointing out that Zodiac _wouldn’t be_ a man at that point wouldn’t help, but she just couldn’t help herself. Fortunately, Kasumi had managed to get Akane calmed down before her shouts about perverts got loud enough to be heard from outside the Tendo compound.

“Are you aware you are being followed?”

Nabiki reluctantly shifted her gaze from the closing restroom door her sister had vanished through back to Chrysanthemum. “I knew it would be a real possibility — I _did_ mention that the Kunos employ at least one ninja, after all.”

“Yes, you did,” the martial artist murmured. “And he has some real stealth skills, too — and beyond into ki powers. Is he likely to tell Kuno-san that your sister has left home?”

“I can’t imagine he hasn’t,” Nabiki replied coolly with a shrug, keeping her disinterested Ice Queen face firmly in place.

“Right.” Chrysanthemum gazed at Nabiki steadily for a long moment, then reached over and touched a stud on her watch, glancing down at its face. “Tower, Baka Alert, the samurai will probably be arriving soon.” She glanced up as “Akane” strode out of the girl’s restroom, a duplicate of Akane’s new bookbag over her shoulder, and rose to her feet. “Let’s go.” The brown-haired woman strode toward the food court entrance, Nabiki and “Akane” falling in beside her.

The three stepped through the glass doors into the parking lot, but slammed to a stop at the sight of the tall figure of Kuno Tatewaki, dressed in the ancient style of the samurai’s robes that he affected, bokken in a two-handed grip pointed at them. “Hold, villains! The foul sorcerer may have succeeded for the nonce in stealing away like the coward he is with the pigtailed girl, seeking to reestablish his thrall after my hard-won success in banishing his malign influence, but you shall not re-enact his triumph! Nay, but the divine Akane of the fiery spirit shall remain here, where she may be protected from the machinations of evil incarnate!”

“Yeah, right, whatever you say,” Nabiki said sardonically, rolling her eyes even as she backed up toward the doors they had just come out of. “Of course it’s sorcery, how could any woman think you’re a delusional, stalking asshole if they weren’t under some sort of spell?”

Kuno growled, tensing, and an angry-red battle aura sprang to life like flames around him. He stepped forward, raising his bokken above his head, and Nabiki felt a stab of fear shoot through her. At this point he should have been cursing her for a ruthless money-hungry bitch with no concept of true honor — and Chrysanthemum abruptly slammed a palm between Nabiki’s shoulder blades as she kicked her feet out from underneath her. “Down!” the martial artist shouted (completely unnecessarily, in Nabiki’s opinion as her face hit the pavement), and dropped beside her as Kuno whipped the bokken down and a blast of ki slanted to pass over “Akane’s” head slashed through the space Nabiki and Chrysanthemum had just occupied and the doors behind them exploded inward to shower the (thankfully almost empty) food court with shards of glass.

Nabiki scrambled backwards on hands and knees through the now-nonexistent doors, uncaring of the broken glass. As soon as she was through she rolled to the side to find Chrysanthemum crouching beside her, somehow in her rainbow-colored, flower-embroidered, long-sleeved tight dress with slits up the sides, makeup in place and hair styled in her normal tight braids. “I know girls that would pay a fortune to be able to quick change like that,” Nabiki said as she sat up.

Ignoring her comment, the superhero grabbed at her, pulling her to her feet and thrusting her toward the hallway toward the mall’s stores. “Go!” Chrysanthemum shouted, even as “Akane’s” voice came to them through the doors, berating Kuno at full volume for attacking her sister.

Nabiki listened for a moment, impressed — word choice was off, but Kuno likely hadn’t been around Akane enough to notice and the tone was perfect. For a moment, she wondered where Zodiac had gotten footage of Akane in full fury (it certainly wasn’t from anything _she_ had sold, and she put aside the implications to consider later). She shook her head. “No. I’ve never run from Kuno before, and I’m not starting now.” Then, as the martial artist started to step forward toward the doors, the Tendo grabbed her arm. “Wait! You can’t go out there, if you do Kuno might realize who ‘Akane’ is.”

Chrysanthemum paused, considering, then grinned as the thunder of jets echoed through the doors. “Not a problem,” she said.

“Hold, citizen!” Tower demanded as he thudded down onto the concrete sidewalk outside the shattered doors, the two inside feeling the vibrations from the Tokyo Super Squad’s battlesuited battlefield leader’s arrival through the soles of their feet.

“Is he for real?” Nabiki asked, grimacing as stunned silence fell outside.

Chrysanthemum rolled her eyes. “Yes, he really is a pompous stick-up-the-ass. But he puts his life on the line to protect others and is good at his job, and that makes up for a lot. Now, if you aren’t going to do the smart thing and leave, at least stay under cover.” She stepped through the doors and around green-enameled armored hero standing there. “Akane, get back, protect your sister!” she yelled. “We’ll take care of bokken-boy, here!”

That shook an unseen Kuno from his shock, and as ‘Akane’ appeared, ducking around Tower’s bulk into the food court, the samurai-in-his-own-mind began to rant about how the foul sorcerer Saotome had corrupted even such stalwarts as the foremost defenders of the sacred isles of Japan.

“I was beginning to think I was actually going to have to attack the idiot to stay in character.” Zodiac chuckled softly in Akane’s voice, coming over to stand beside Nabiki as ‘she’ intently watched what ‘she’ could see of the battle (not much). “And wouldn’t that have — down!”

Nabiki bit back a shriek as she slammed back-down on the glass-covered floor, ‘Akane’ on top of her. Tower smashed through the doorway, taking the door frames and what glass was left in place with him as he flew back over the pair and crashed down to plow a path through the food court’s tables and chairs. Rolling ‘Akane’ off of her, Nabiki again sat up and stared in stunned disbelief at the showers of sparks fountaining from the long diagonal slash across the front of Tower’s armor.

“Able to use a bokken to cut through a full-grown tree with a single slash, right,” Zodiac muttered as ‘she’ stood. “That’s it, we’re out of here.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Nabiki mumbled. She could let the poetry-spouting fool have the moral victory, this time — it wasn’t like he’d ever know, anyway.

/\

A few hours later, Chrysanthemum walked into the Tokyo Super Squad’s common room and up to the table where Zodiac (shifted back to his normal utterly forgettable self) and Nabiki sat eating. “Nabiki-kun, how are you?” she asked.

“I’m all right — I needed a few stitches, but your doctor took care of that and most of the cuts are superficial,” the mercenary Tendo replied in her normal cool tone, not allowing her surprise at the concern in the older woman’s voice to show.

“Good to hear. Akane-kun?”

“Feedback called a few minutes ago. He was taking Akane out a different entrance about the time Tower was getting knocked through ours, and she’s on her way, even if it’s the long way around. Kuno?”

“I took care of him,” Chrysanthemum said, pulling out a chair and sitting down with a weary sigh of relief. “A few barbed ofuda in the right shiatsu points and he dropped. We’re just lucky he wasn’t wearing any armor. Tower’s still kicking himself for how badly he underestimated him.”

“So, what happens to the Blue Blunder now? Nothing good, I hope,” Nabiki asked with a smirk.

“Well, right now he’s in jail for assault and reckless endangerment, the usual, and I believe the mall owners are going to press charges and sue for damages. We’re going to try and see if we can get a competency hearing based on his rantings before he attacked, but it’s going to be tough — Kuno lawyers are already showing up, and our legal department has expressed surprise at their quality.  They’re even worse than we expected.”

Sighing, the martial artist straightened as she glanced at Nabiki’s plate. “If you’re done eating, I can take you home — in one of the team’s flashy air cars. That should finish focusing Kuno-san’s attention on us and off your family. Right?”

Ignoring the knowing smiles on the two heroes’ faces, Nabiki quickly finished off the last of one of the best meals she’d had that Kasumi hadn’t cooked, then sighed contentedly. “That was good, you must be paying your chef a fortune. But I’d better get home, Father and Kasumi will be worried. Thanks for the offer of a ride.”

Chrysanthemum rose, and Nabiki rose to join her, wincing a little at bruises and stitches pulling slightly. As the two walked toward the door, Chrysanthemum murmured to the pageboy-haired girl beside her, “Nabiki-kun, a trap works better if the people expected to close it know that’s what they’re doing. You might want to keep that in mind in the future.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lifted the "Baka Alert" call from the later chapters of Sarge4's very lengthy "Couch Trips" fanfic.


	14. The first casualty of battle ...

Morita stood at the same third-story office window he’d been standing at when Tsurimi had brought him word of the Davenport assassination fiasco at LeMastre Park. At the time, he had been proud of how his long-awaited assignment to undermine the Miyamiji-kai from the inside had been progressing, and looking forward to finally returning to his true home.

But then that flying burglar had broken in at just the wrong moment, now the police were ignoring the obvious target, and his time in the leadership of the Miyamiji-kai was growing short — it would not be all _that_ long before someone else in this building had an attack of intelligence and wondered if perhaps their gurentai hand-grenaded at the hospital hadn’t been a loyal Miyamiji-kai member who received his marching orders from someone he was expected to obey. Once that happened, it wouldn’t be hard to follow the trail back to him. And then, his choice would be to stand a failure, or flee to his true home a failure — either way, the result would most likely be fatal.

Behind him he heard the rattle of his current woman cleaning up the remnants of his breakfast. Turning to look at the naked blonde carrying the dirty dishes to the dumbwaiter, he carefully kept a frown off his face, as he considered another ongoing failure. Outwardly, she was as meek as he could ask for, and the aging bruises covering her body showed how much he had enjoyed training her for her new station. But this time, the pain and humiliation he had inflicted had failed to break her spirit. He could _feel_ it — however submissive she acted, she yet resisted. And with her devotion to the training and apparent acceptance of her place as both maid and bedwarmer, he was running out of reasons to inflict yet more punishment. Not even his description of what awaited her in Japan had shaken her morale. _We’ll just have to see if that holds when we actually get you to Tokyo...._

A knock at his door let him know that the men he had summoned had arrived. Deborah looked up at the knock as she closed the dumbwaiter’s door, then silently over at her new master for instructions. She had taken to heart the lesson of her first day (and first bruises) to stay silent unless spoken to. Morita pointed to a well-lit spot, and without hesitation or any sign of dismay she walked over and turned to face the room, taking the stance he had shown her to put herself on display. Still no reason to punish her.

“Enter!” Morita called out in English, and the door opened to admit the gang of gurentai that had kidnapped his slave from her home and killed her police guards in the process. He watched Deborah out of the corner of his eye — not so much as a flinch. He was beginning to be a little concerned about her composure, and not just frustrated; it certainly didn’t fit what the photographer had reported of her behavior at LeMastre Park when her boyfriend was killed, then she’d been as hysterical as any other arrogant pampered American socialite. Now ...

Focusing back on the gurentai, outwardly calm, he accepted their bows. Noticing their appreciative glances at the display of the slave they’d briefly had in their power, he considered lending Deborah to them for awhile to see what _that_ would do to her resistance, but reluctantly discarded the idea. There simply wasn’t time right now, and by the time they returned ( _if_ they returned), he and his slave would be gone.

“You did well earlier, when you chose to acquire my slave,” he began without preamble, continuing in English so that Deborah could understand. “However, there is yet an individual that was involved at the park that has so far escaped us.”

The gurentai exchanged worried glances. “We are still searching for the boy —” one started, only to break off when Morita shook his head.

“No, not the boy in the photograph,” he said, and handed the gurentai that had spoken up a photo of a small redheaded Japanese girl dressed in jeans, a blouse and windbreaker, the statue of Poseidon from City Center Plaza behind her. “While none of our people that were at the park have mentioned her, she was found there by the police. She claims to be the daughter of the man that was killed when he interfered with the executions.” He handed over another photograph of the girl dressed much the same, this time walking hand in hand with another girl less than half her age with light brown hair in a winter coat, the two smiling. “She has spent the last few afternoons at LeMastre Park at the playground between the zoo and the sports fields with this child. They may be there now. Go, and if you find them kill them both.”

The gurentai bowed and left on their new mission. Morita watched them go, then sat down in front of his computer. _That_ should do it—even if the girl wasn’t as skilled as her father and brother and they actually killed her, there would be plenty of spectators with cell phone cameras if nothing else. The police would almost certainly be able to identify who they were, and which Yakuza clan they belonged to. But whether or not they were identified, now that he was leaving he needed to clean out his files of anything that might be useful to those that thought they commanded his loyalty.

He watched his slave out of the corner of his eye, but she remained in place, unmoving in the display stance, eyes fixed on the opposite wall, silent. Too bad, yet another opportunity lost. “Get a robe,” he ordered curtly. “We’ll be leaving soon.” Deborah turned and headed for the door to the sleeping quarters, and Morita smiled at the sudden tension that gripped her. _That_ had finally done it, at least a little. Dismissing thoughts of plans for her once they got to Japan, he turned back to the computer. His time was short.

/oOo\

B.P. had an unusual problem for him, these days, boredom. (B.P. being short for the Barstool Prophet, as he was known at the hudsoncity-answers. org website, the Answerman that handled questions on sports trivia, local events such as weather, road repairs, ongoing construction, and Hudson City urban legends — and questions involving organized crime for the Answer when his cases tended that way.) The skinny, out of shape, brown-haired twenty-something sighed as he glanced around at the monitors scattered haphazardly about the room on tables and filing cabinets, each displaying a driveway or the inside of a garage, before returning his attention to the monitor in front of him full of graphs and scrolling text. When the Answer had approached him with his request to help the neophyte vigilante in his quest for (nonlethal) justice, he had had visions of exciting adventures — at a remove, of course, he was more the “watch what’s happening on a computer monitor and give advice” type. And while there had been those moments, in retrospect he should have remembered what his ex-cop father had had to say about the daily grind of police work along with all the details that had sparked his interest in the working of organized crime in Hudson City.

In this case, that “daily grind” was monitoring the spy cameras Bluejay, DarkAngel and Cherub (snicker) had planted. Thankfully, he had bleeding edge pattern recognition software to handle actually “watching” the monitors so he was able to focus on his day job as a day trader, but it had been days since he’d left —

The scream of an alarm almost bounced him out of his chair, and he whirled to frantically look around at monitors, searching for ... there, monitor twenty, the one with the flashing red border showing the inside of a garage, a man in a stylish business suit and a woman wearing a house robe walking toward a sports car with tinted windows, the woman outlined by blinking white, numbers beside her reporting a 98% match. At last, Deborah Manning had emerged from the black hole she’d dropped into.

Hastily turning back to his desktop computer, he cleared his screen and with a few keystrokes had the same view from monitor twenty before him, just in time to see Deborah climb into the passenger seat. B.P. typed in a command, waited until the man locked in her seatbelt and walked around to get into the driver’s seat (B.P. thinking grimly that he doubted that belt would unlock without a key). As soon as the driver’s side door closed B.P. hit the Return key, and within the tiny camera lens that Bluejay had sneaked in and planted several nights before the feature they hadn’t mentioned to the burglar swiveled and soundlessly spat a tiny dart at the car right above the back bumper. Within seconds, a new screen opened up on his monitor showing a city street map, with a blinking dot even now in motion. A couple of keystrokes activated another preprogrammed command, and a line quickly drew itself from the dot along the street through a couple of turns until it disappeared offscreen — a line that the dot was clearly not following; it was actually moving the opposite direction.

Slumping slightly in relief, B.P. picked up a phone and hit speed dial as he kept an eye on the blinking dot twisting through the street map on the monitor, a new map popping up whenever the dot hit the edge. “Hi, Sandra!” ... “Wrong number? Oops, sorry.” ... “Yeah, you have a great day, too.”

Message delivered, he hung up, then typed in another speed dial. “Hey, Bluejay, we got a hit, one of the ones you planted.” ... “Yeah, 98% match, wearing a house robe and getting into a sports car. It’s her, and it doesn’t look like they’re headed for the airport, you’re in the clear for now.” ... “Yeah, that could change, I’m keeping an eye on it. But unless the route changes drastically, you’re going to spend tonight providing top cover instead of chasing a private plane across the country.” ... “Yeah, I’ll keep you posted. Till later.”

Hanging up again, he leaned back in his ultra-expensive office chair and rubbed at weary eyes, limp with relief. It looked like this one was going to have something approximating a happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, the military truism is that the first casualty of any battle is The Plan.


	15. An Afternoon at the Park

Ranma glanced around where she crouched behind her makeshift wall, trying to grow eyes in the back of her head — her enemy was getting too clever by half, and she had to be careful or they’d nail her _again_. Taking a chance, she briefly lifted her head above the top for a quick scan across the enemy positions before ducking back down, exulting. Yes! She’d caught movement on her right flank, they’d be making a rush soon, and _this_ time she’d be ready for them!

Peeking around the end of her wall, the redhead grinned at the sight of four small heads bobbing as the children crawled toward her through the snow, including Kat. Cackling, Ranma rose to her feet, projectiles in hand — and shouted as half a dozen snowballs hit her in the back, dropping her own snowballs as the rules called for. Those little hellions did it to her again!

Seeing her snowballs fall, the four children in front of her leapt to their feet and dashed forward, shouting improvised battlecries as they closed the distance to Ranma’s snowfort to hurl their own snowballs at point blank range before she had time to stoop and pick up her own ammo.

“Okay, okay, you got me — hot chocolate for everyone, like I promised,” she said, laughing, and fixed her grinning half-sister with a mock-stern scowl. “You came up with that little plan, didn’t you?” she demanded.

Kat nodded, happy grin unshakeable.

“Well you’re getting sneaky — good for you!” Ranma complimented, matching her grin. “Now, let’s go!”

The children all cheered, and as their smiling mothers or minders watched, the small mob hauled the ponytailed redhead in the direction of the booth selling hot drinks and snacks to the park’s visitors, Ranma unconsciously rubbing the bracer locking the curse that she was wearing underneath her thick jacket.

/\

Half an hour later, Ranma was swooping back and forth through the chilly air on a swing, holding Kat in her lap with one hand as her little sister squealed with glee, yelling, “Higher! Higher!” each time they peaked going forward. “Do the spin!” the little brunette shouted.

Ranma thought of the last time they’d done this, when she’d let go of the swing when they’d gotten as high as they could reach, arcing away and managing two flips with Kat in her arms before a perfect landing on the ground — now, _that_ had been getting the most out of her Rhythmic Gymnastics training! But then she remembered the horrified expressions of the adults around them afterward. Looking around at the other people enjoying the park during their next swing, she reluctantly shook her head. “Sorry, Kitten, we don’t want to scare the grownups too much — they might complain to your mothers, and then we might not be able to keep spending these afternoons together. In fact, it’s probably about time I got you home. I’m surprised your Momma Jenny hasn’t called.”

“Awww, do we hafta?” Kat whined.

Ranma laughed. “Yes, Kitten, we ‘hafta’,” she replied even as she continued scanning those around them ... maybe if enough adults weren’t paying attention she could give her sister a treat —

The redhead’s heart froze. There were an unusual number of Japanese around ... and they were all male, young, and if there’d been a corresponding number of Japanese kids around they’d have been part of the snowball fight. Normally Ranma wouldn’t have worried, he could handle any number of punks and thugs any day ... but Kat was with her, they’d grabbed Deborah Manning and all she’d done was date the man they’d murdered, and there were men out there that _preferred_ little girls.... _Okay, Ranma, don’t panic. The guys at the park had guns, these guys probably do, too. So first, let’s get a lot of attention, get this away from the kids, get Kat hidden ... okay, you can do this._

“Kitten, we’re going to get that spin after all, get ready,” the redhead whispered in her sister’s ear as they dropped down in the backswing. Kat twisted to hug Ranma around the neck as they swung back, then they were dropping forward, sweeping up ... up ... up ... and Ranma let go of the swing’s side chain, pushed off from the seat as they arced, spun forward once ... twice as Kat shouted “Wheee!” in her ear, and then the redhead’s knees flexed as the pair landed. The brunette was laughing excitedly as Ranma lowered her to her feet and looked around at the shocked expressions on the faces of the adults. _Good, they’re paying attention._

“Young lady, that was incredibly irresponsible,” one matronly woman nearby said sternly. “You could have been hurt!”

“Not as good as I am,” Ranma said with a smirk, apparently ignoring the Japanese man with his hands in his coat pockets standing nearby. As one hand started to slide out of its pocket, she continued, “Hey, Kat, what do you say we take a walk through the woods before heading home?”

“Sure, and you can show me some more moves like yesterday!” Kat enthused.

Ranma grinned. “You’re on!” _Okay, everybody’s watching when we head off, let’s see if those guys follow us now._

The pair walked away from the playground toward the nearby patch of woods. As they stepped past the first of the trees, Ranma glanced over her shoulder. Damn! The men she’d noticed were following them, spreading out as they went. _Keep an even pace, don’t let them know you’ve seen them..._

“Katherine, we’re being followed by bad men,” she said quietly. “No, don’t look back,” she added hastily as the child started to turn around. “I’m going to toss you up into one of the trees. I want you to sit on a branch next to the trunk and _don’t move_ while I keep going, so the punks will follow me. Stay there and don’t make a sound unless you hear me calling for you or see a cop. Okay?”

Kat nodded jerkily, and Ranma swept her up in her arms without breaking stride and looked around — okay, the thugs couldn’t see them, there was a nice big tree up ahead and to the side... She angled to pass beneath the tree, glanced up, _There’s a nice, wide branch._ She stopped, legs still spread as if she was walking, gripped her little sister under her armpits and _tossed_ her up ... and sighed in relief as Kat caught the branch and scrambled up to sit against the trunk, over twenty feet off the ground.

As soon as Kat was secure, Ranma softly called up, “Remember, _be vewwy vewwy quiet_!”

Kat giggled. “Right, ‘cause you’re hunting ‘wabbits’.”

Ranma grinned up at her and walked away while fishing in her coat’s breast pocket and glancing around ... good, her trail through the fresh snow looked like she’d walked past Kat’s tree without a pause.

Pulling out her cell phone, she typed in the speed dial number Sergeant Amado had insisted on.

Behind her, Kat slowly pulled the rock she confiscated from one of her playmates before the boy could build a snowball around it out of her pocket and held it in her lap.

/oOo\

Sergeant Amado was _not_ a happy man. While DarkAngel’s “anonymous” handover of Bluejay’s inadvertent eavesdropping had been welcome, it had also vastly expanded the hunt for Deborah Manning, and presumably the kidnappers and eventual murderers of the Stanson sisters, from focusing on one particular faction of the yakuza to “focusing” on all the factions _but_ one. That had meant more resources, and that _someone_ had to handle coordinating everything. And he purely hated deskwork.

Sighing, he put aside a singularly uninformative report of the patchy surveillance they’d managed of the Hinagawa-kai. Now _there_ was a likely prospect for replacing the Miyamiji-kai as the prime suspect — the largest and perhaps most powerful yakuza clan in the world, and the weakest in Hudson City. That _had_ to grate on their nerves. Unfortunately, that very obviousness _also_ made them a prime fall guy for some _other_ clan — and his cell phone went off.

He quickly dug around in his suit coat pocket for the phone, eyebrow rising at the sound and a seed of worry awakening — that particular ringtone was assigned to his “might be in trouble” list, and ... pulling out the phone and checking the number, his other eyebrow rose to join the first, along with that seed of worry exploding into a full-grown bush. It was Ranma, and there was no way that girl would be calling him for a friendly chat. He hit the accept button. “Sergeant Amado speaking.”

“ _Sergeant, this is Ranma.”_ The sergeant frowned at how hard it was to hear the redhead — she had to be whispering. _“I’m at LeMastre Park with Kat, and —”_

“You mean Katherine Danville, Stacy’s daughter?”

“ _Yeah, her. Some Japanese guys showed up, maybe half a dozen or so, and followed us into the woods. I figure they probably have guns so I’ve got Kat up a tree out of sight, and I’m going to be playing cat and mouse in a minute. Thought you’d like to send some cops to pick them up when I’m done.”_

Amado shivered. It had to be his imagination, given how quietly Ranma was speaking, but he would have sworn her voice was cold enough to freeze the phones. “Remember, no killing if you can avoid it,” he warned. “Where in the park are you?”

“ _The woods east of the playgrounds on the west side, just north of the zoo,”_ Ranma replied, and the phone went dead.

It was only after he was in a police car heading for the park at top speed, siren howling, that Sergeant Amado considered the incongruity of telling a teenage girl being hunted by half a dozen armed men not to kill anyone.


	16. They thought they were the wolves....

Honda Satoshi grinned as he and his fellow gurentai entered the woods on the girls’ trail. While he’d been willing to carry out the hit at the playground and count on shock to keep the onlookers from taking any photos before he and his gang had a chance to run, this was a definite improvement — no witnesses, and plenty of directions to head after the hit.

Except ... his eyes narrowed at the sight of a number of tracks crisscrossing through the snow in the ten yards or so he could see into the woods. Okay, so there might be some witnesses. He shrugged at the thought. So maybe a few more targets before they ran — no big, now that Morita had okayed relaxing the restrictions on violence a bit. Satoshi had never really understood those limits, anyway. They were supposed to be afraid of the overweight, doughnut-munching losers passing for cops in this city? Sure, the Citywide Task Force had some scary people, but what was the chance that any of its teams would be assigned to hunt down some low-level thugs? Not many front page stories in _that_ , after all.

Then another thought occurred to him, and he glanced at the rest of his gang, all within a few paces of him. {Everyone, spread out and pick up the pace,} he whispered. {With the number of tracks, we can’t get confused and lose them, so let’s catch up.}

The other five nodded and spread out into a long line, moving through the snow as quietly as possible — none of them looking up as they passed a tree with a little girl sitting high up on a branch, holding her breath and clutching her rock as she watched Satoshi in the middle of the line walk underneath her.

/\

Hirotaka was feeling more than a little disgruntled. He knew he was the newest member of the gang, but he was getting a little tired of the others getting all the fun. He’d been getting the scutwork for months, and now being on the end of the line meant he probably wasn’t going to be in on the kill. Though maybe Satoshi would decide they should have some fun with the older one first? They could tie up and gag the kid and kill them both when they were done with her minder...

Then his eyes narrowed as they caught a flash of red ahead through some brush helping form the edge of a walking path — the same color as the jacket the older girl had been wearing! His lips pealed back in a teeth-baring grin as he crouched and scuttled forward, pulling his semi-automatic pistol out of his pocket and trying not to wince at the sound of his feet crunching in the snow. If she didn’t hear him coming or just thought it was someone else enjoying the woods, he could get the drop on her before she or the brat ran away.

He burst through the brush and slammed to a stop, gaping at the sight of the coat hanging on a bush on the other side of the path. The only reason the redhead would take off her coat that he could think of was to show off the moves kid had mentioned, but _here_? And where were they? Suddenly he heard the snow-crunching sound of someone landing directly behind him and whirled in place, to find himself staring into a pair of cold blue eyes ... only a yard away. Shouting in surprise, he stumbled back as he raised his pistol.

/\

Munoto grimaced at the sound of a shout and a gunshot ahead and to his right and pulled his pistol out of his pocket. _Idiot! I know he’s new, but even_ he _should know that you don’t get much fun out of a corpse,_ he thought even as he broke into a run toward the sound of another gunshot and rising shriek of pain. If Hiro was stupid enough to shoot on sight, at least he was good enough to hit what he was shooting at, the older girl from the sound — that shriek had been way too deep and loud to be the kid.

{Hiro, you idiot!} he shouted, shoving through the bushes lining the walking path. {What do you think you’re —} He froze when he saw his fellow gurentai lying unconscious on the path. Hirotaka’s pistol was lying in the snow at the side of the path, easily within his reach, but it didn’t matter — elbows weren’t supposed to bend that way. Neither were knees.

Munoto’s only warning was a faint rustling in the bushes he’d just push through before a hand closed on his wrist, another on his shoulder, and it was his turn to shriek, his pistol firing uselessly into the snow as his wrist snapped. Even as he dropped his pistol, gasping in pain, a hand grabbed his shoulder and twisted him around. He found himself face to face with the older redhead, the joy he’d seen on her face when she was playing with the kids replaced by the empty, cold-eyed gaze of a predator. Then the short girl stepped back, and Munoto shrieked again, collapsing to the side as a quick kick shattered his kneecap. As he lay sobbing helplessly on the path, the redhead crossed the path, pushed through the bushes on the other side and vanished from sight.

/\

A viciously grinning Ranma moved as silently as she could in the brittle snow alongside the line of bushes that lined the curve of the walking path, taking it slow to help keep the noise down. Briefly, she considered taking to the trees — they were deciduous and with their leaves gone with autumn she wouldn’t have much trouble moving from one tree to another — but rejected the thought. Kat was in one of those trees, and Ranma didn’t want the thugs she was stalking looking up. Besides, Stacy had _strongly_ suggested that she hide the full extent of her abilities when not in costume — except when in private with Sensei, of course.

Shouts of shock rose behind her and the redhead chanced a peek through the bushes, and found that the track had curved enough to block line of sight to the thugs she’d taken down. Wiggling through the shrubbery she crept back the way she’d come, faster on the already walked-on snow.

When more gurentai came into sight she froze where she crouched, counting — three ... no, a fourth had just pushed his way through the bushes. She slowly backed up, then crawled through a space at the bottom of the bushes and along the hedge toward the talking thugs. _Let’s see, I could just jump over the bushes right into the middle of them ... no, that’s almost as bad as using the trees —_

{Forget it, I am not going off alone! The redhead has to be the one that took down Munoto and Hiro, and I’m not running into her by myself. Besides, the sheep back at the playground had to hear those gunshots, the cops will be on their way, we have to get out of here.}

{He’s right, Satoshi, this job’s a bust.}

{What about Hiro and Munoto?}

{We should leave them for the cops ... unless you’d rather try and carry them out? Didn’t think so.}

{ ... All right, we’re out of here. We’ll just have to get the girls’ names and home addresses and try again later when the heat’s died down.}

Ranma’s grin vanished, her face going cold as she listened to the gurentai walking in her direction — they weren’t just after her they were after her sister! _If anyone tries later, it won’t be you._ Then the four thugs were alongside her, and her leap spung her over the hedgerow between them, her first strike splashed a nose flat as a backward thrusting kick landed between a gurentai’s legs hard enough to push him through the hedge, and she spun out of the way as a frantic thug pointed his shaking gun at her and pulled the trigger.

/oOo\

Stacy barged through the doors into the police precinct building and strode to the front desk. “Where’s Ranma and Kat?” the short-cut blonde demanded as she took the last few steps.

“Uh, well ... she, uh, they ...” the unfortunate officer on duty stuttered. “She’s ...”

“Right now Ranma’s being interrogated.”

Stacy turned at the familiar voice. “Interrogated, George? _Interrogated?_ _She’s_ being interrogated?!”

“Stacy ...” Sergeant Amado gently took her by the elbow and guided her around the desk back into the precinct. “Stacy, the six thugs that went after Ranma and Kat ... Ranma hammered them — I mean _really_ hammered them,” he explained as they walked. “Two of them got off relatively light, just a broken elbow and shattered kneecap each. The dead one was apparently shot by mistake in the scrum by one of his friends. But the other three ... Stacy, they’re going to be in traction for a lot longer than they’d be in jail for anything we can charge them with! And they’ll probably never walk without the help of a cane, if they can walk at all.”

Stacy blanched. “Is Ranma in trouble?” she asked quietly. “Should I be calling my lawyer?”

“Your lawyer’s already with her, and trying with some difficulty to keep her from saying anything too stupid — she was out of control and she knows it, she’s pretty shaken up. But in trouble? Probably not. I doubt the County Prosecutor is going to want to try and sell a jury on the idea that a young girl that fought off six armed men trying to kidnap or kill her and Kat should be the one up on charges. The extended interrogation is pretty much the Chief’s way of impressing the seriousness of Ranma’s actions on her without arresting her.”

But Stacy missed the last part, as her mind fastened on one word and she started to shake: “Kat? _My daughter_ was a target?!”

Sergeant Amado stopped outside a closed door and reached up to gently grip her shoulders. “Stacy, Kat’s fine, just like I told you when I called. She’s here with her mother — her _other_ mother — right now, waiting for you and her father. But yes, from evidence we found at the scene and what Ranma overheard, Kat was a target as well. I’m not surprised Ranma lost control.”

_No, George, Ranma_ didn’t _lose control,_ Stacy thought distantly as she fought off one flashing image after another of what could have happened to her little girl. _If she had, those thugs would be dead._ But from what George had said about the injuries the thugs had suffered, that was almost worse — but only almost. _Kat ..._

Sergeant Amado glanced up and down the hallway, then stepped forward and pulled the shaking woman into a comforting hug. “Kat’s fine,” he murmured. “She’s _going to be_ fine. We’re assigning a police guard for her until this is over, _serious_ guards this time, bulletproof vests and all, nobody’s getting to her like they got to Manning.”

Slowly, the woman in his arms relaxed, the quivers running through her body easing away until they vanished. Finally, the sergeant stepped back and reached for the doorknob. “And now, why don’t we give a little girl another chance to boast about how totally cool her big sister is.”


	17. New Arrivals

Akane jerked awake in her seat in the jet airliner as a hand lightly shook her shoulder, barely restraining herself from knocking the hand away.

“Excuse me, miss, but we will be landing at Los Angeles in a moment,” the apologetic flight attendant the hand belonged to said. “You need to return your seat to an upright position and refasten your seatbelt.”

Akane nodded to indicate she’d heard and straightened, raising the seat back up and rubbing at her eyes. It had been a long flight after a long flight before it, and she couldn’t remember how long a wait between them — and the fact that she hadn’t heard any news from either Nerima or Hudson City didn’t mix well with the fact that she hadn’t been sleeping well even before she left Nerima. Noticing that the stewardess was still there she refastened her seat belt

As the young woman smiled her thanks and moved on to the next passenger, Akane looked out the window. They were still over water, it would be awhile yet. She just hoped whoever was waiting for her when she got off the plane knew how to speak Japanese, she was finding that her high school English hadn’t prepared her as well as she’d expected.

/\

{Thank you so much for your help, I would have been lost without you,} Akane said to the honeymooning couple on the way to Disneyland, _very_ happy that they were actually from Japan and not fourth generation Japanese Americans from Hawaii and so could actually speak Japanese. {Actually, I _was_ lost without you!}

{We were happy to help, Nakadan-san} the new husband replied, {Good luck with your new school.}

{Thank you, and to you, too, have fun at Disneyland.} A grateful Akane hastily made her farewells to the couple and hurried off down the concourse toward the terminal for her next flight. Now that she was away from the honeymooners, her nervousness at being alone was rapidly transforming into _anger_ at being alone — which was both why she failed to recognize her assumed name for the trip when it was called out, and why the owner of the hand that caught her elbow had that elbow slammed into his midriff.

Fortunately for the stranger, the angle was bad and momentum almost nonexistent, so he only stumbled back, bent over and wheezing, rather than getting knocked back through the crowd around them and into the nearest wall with ruptured organs. Looking at the way the people around them were staring at the abrupt confrontation, a few of the men and one woman looking ready to step forward to protect the teenaged female half of the scuffle, he forced himself to straighten and turn to Akane. “My apologies, Ms. Nakadan. You weren’t answering my calls, but I should have known better than to grab your elbow like that. Good hit, by the way.”

“Ah. You are ... person ... to meet me?” Akane asked carefully, reviewing every word to make sure it came out right in English and reflecting that she would have to reevaluate Xian Pu’s bimbo status — she had to sound just like that purple-haired menace.

“Yes, I’m David Jackson. I was delayed by an accident on the freeway and missed you at the terminal — of course, _this_ flight actually arrived on schedule.”  Even as he appeared completely focused on the Japanese teenager, Jackson surreptitiously assessed the crowd and was satisfied — those ready to intervene had relaxed along with the girl they had been ready to defend, and a number of chuckles had risen at his comments. Security wasn’t going to be showing up. “Would you prefer to speak Japanese?” he asked, and hid a smile at Akane’s obvious relief.

{Yes, thank you! I thought I knew English from school, but ...}

{But studying a language and actually using it are very different propositions, I know. Come this way, please.} Jackson discreetly observed Akane’s tired eyes, slumped shoulders, the slight tremor of her hands, and decided to keep the conversation light. {How was your flight?}

Akane relaxed at the harmless conversation, even as her frustration grew at her inability to ask for news — her contact at the airport in Australia had shut down her attempt to ask, quietly saying that they couldn’t discuss it in public. So she simply followed her new minder, pulling her single carry-on on its wheels, until she noticed the direction they were headed. {Where are we going?} she asked. {We just passed the turn to my next flight.}

Jackson glanced over at the suddenly tense girl and sighed. {There’s been a change of plans, your arrival in Hudson City will be delayed.}

{What! Why?!} Akane demanded, slamming to a halt.

Realizing his charge was no longer following him, Jackson turned back. Considering the way Akane was abruptly ready for combat, he reluctantly decided at least some discussion couldn’t wait for complete privacy — he would simply have to hope that no one able to overhear could speak Japanese. He asked, {Ranma told you about what happened to her when she arrived in Hudson City?} At Akane’s jerky nod, he continued, {Well, things have ... heated up, and Ranma’s getting a lot of attention from the press. We thought you’d prefer to have Ranma help you settle in, and right now it’s not possible to do that quietly. There’s a private jet waiting to take you to Millennium City, with a TV and some recorded news programs to bring you up to speed.}

Akane stared at him suspiciously, but finally nodded and started forward again.

Her suspicion lasted until they reached their destination, and she found herself gaping at the “private jet” waiting for her on the tarmac, one even a native of Japan could recognize — the rounded wedge-shaped, backswept-winged primary transportation of the superteam that had over the previous decade grown to become the most famous in the world, the Champions. {That’s ... that’s ...}

{The V-Jet, yes,} Jackson finished. {At mach ten, we’ll be in Millennium City in less than an hour.}

/\

As perhaps the most famous jet in the world taxied down the runway, Jackson brought up the first of the recorded news stories of the attack on Ranma and a child at a LeMastre Park, and suddenly where Akane was headed wasn’t nearly as important as where she wasn’t.

/oOo\

Nakamura Hideo, chief oyabun of the Sawakiri-gumi in Hudson City newly returned from Japan, ignored his jet lag and sat stolidly, watching as Morita was ushered into the small conference room in the Sawakiri-gumi’s headquarters in Hudson City. He kept his face expressionless, not allowing his distaste for the man joining him to show. Morita was a pig, and a wasteful one. The brutal treatment of the Western women he took into his own “service” inevitably broke them, and once he discarded them for new toys they never lasted long in whatever brothel they ended up in. But he was a useful pig, and certainly had done as fine a job as the Sawakiri-gumi’s mole in the Miyamiji-kai as circumstances allowed.

Morita started at the sight of the top-ranked leader of the Sawakiri-gumi in Hudson City waiting for him, bowed deeply, then when given handwaved permission took a seat across from his superior. Nakamura continued to gaze expressionlessly at him for a long minute before asking in their native Japanese, “You have seen the news reports of the attack you ordered on Saotome Ranma and Dansville Katherine?”

Morita nodded. “Yes, I have.”

Nakamura maintained his inscrutability for a moment, before allowing a hint of approval to show, tapping the folder on the table in front of him. “You have done as well as could be expected,” he said. “The attack itself was a complete failure, but seems to have accomplished its goal of focusing the attention of the police back on the Miyamiji-kai. Our sources inside the department say that the sergeant immediately in charge of the investigation has protested, saying that the attack is simply more of the same and changes nothing, but he has been overruled — the attack has cast doubt on the word from this ‘Bluejay’ of the Miyamiji-kai’s innocence in this matter.” He shrugged faintly. “Ridiculous, of course, but they are finding no leads anywhere else they are looking and the public pressure to ‘do something’ must be getting intense.

“Furthermore, the attack revealed something else important — just how well trained a martial artist Ranma is.”

He paused, and after a moment Morita hesitantly asked, “I don’t understand. True, from the reports the fight was brutally one-sided, but I don’t see why that is of concern to us. The attack on her has served its purpose, after all, there is no need to engage her again. And if we do not engage her, then she is no threat to us.”

“True, but what about her brother — her _clone_ brother, if our police sources are correct? He has to be as skilled as she is if not more, and the Miyamiji-kai gurentai you ordered to search for him were unable to find a hint of his existence.”

Morita stiffened in his chair as a spike of fear shot through him, then was barely able to keep his shame off his face as his superior’s gaze sharpened. “No, they — I — failed,” he agreed.

Nakamura let the moment stretch before finally speaking. “No blame for that failure, the Sawakiri-gumi gurentai had no more success and greater resources. Nor have the police. But the fact that he _has_ vanished completely in a city he doesn’t know means that someone is helping him. If it was some random stranger taking mercy on a lost and bereaved boy then there is no danger to our plans, but I find that unlikely — in that case, the authorities would have been contacted once it was clear they weren’t charging him with anything. No, most likely there is another player, perhaps one of the vigilantes that infest this place. And if that is the case, we will be facing him later.”

“I see,” Morita mused, quickly shuffling through the various vigilantes that called Hudson City home. “Going by location, I’d say DarkAngel is the most likely of the known vigilantes to run into the original Ranma — LeMastre Park is part of the territory she most commonly operates in — but the sheer viciousness with which the clone Ranma put down the attack on her and the child doesn’t fit well with DarkAngel’s usual ... delicacy.”

Nakamura considered his subordinate’s words for a moment, then glanced over his shoulder at the bodyguard he had brought from Japan — not a member of the clan, but the sheer lethality of the city’s vigilantes had made acquiring the services of someone with more than the usual yakuza’s fighting skills seem necessary, even one as young as Kumon Ryu. Though something about the young man had changed when he’d heard the Saotome name, made him more ... intense? Focused? Perhaps there was some history there.... “Kumon-kun, from the police records and news reports I gave you, would you say that the damage Ranma inflicted on the Miyamiji-kai gurentai was deliberate?”

“Absolutely,” Kumon responded instantly. “If they had managed to catch her at range and use their pistols they _might_ have had a chance, but the way she got up close — no, they had no chance at all. I doubt she broke a sweat.”

“Which also means that the fact that they are still alive was her decision, as well?” Nakamura asked.

Kumon nodded. “Yes, that as well.”

Nakamura turned his gaze back to Morita, who shrugged. “An excellent point, sir, I agree — certainly, the fact that those gurentai are only in the hospital rather than the morgue means Ranma is unlikely to work with someone like the Harbinger of Justice or the Headless Hangman, much less the Scarecrow. And since the rumors heard by our police sources confirm my assassin’s impression that DarkAngel was present at the hospital when he killed Isamu-kun, she has taken an interest in the case. If the original Ranma has linked up with her and she is somehow able to trace the attacks back to the Sawakiri-gumi, we’ll be seeing him.”

Nakamura nodded, then glanced back at Ryu. “Kumon-kun, from the video we showed you, could you defeat DarkAngel?”

“Yes,” Ryu replied. “She has training, but not to my level.”

“And Ranma?”

“Ryu frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t say. Certainly his father, the man that trained him, was one of the best. But that doesn’t mean the training took, and the gurentai his clone took down wouldn’t be skilled enough give a decent measure — DarkAngel could have done as well, easily. But however good he is, if he isn’t willing to kill I can slow him down — a lot.”

“Very well, if Ranma joins DarkAngel in an attack here, he is to be your primary target.” Nakamura turned his focus back to Morita. “Now, tell me of your personal impressions of Miyamiji Junzo, and the top leaders of the Miyamiji-kai here in Hudson City immediately under him....”

/oOo\

Chrysanthemum sighed with relief as she walked through the exit gate from her flight from Las Vegas. The second flight had been shorter than the Tokyo-Las Vegas leg of her trip, but no less tiring — especially since she had been travelling incognito and so flying commercial rather than the first class accommodations that her membership in Japan’s premier superhero team would have given her.

She smirked a little as she collected her baggage, thinking of her teammate Zodiac’s mild envy of her ability to just fade into a crowd or get everyone’s attention with just a shift in attitude, but firmly reminded herself that _this_ time that change came with a false name. _Okay, first drop my luggage off at my hotel room, then a quick trip to Danville Stacy’s apartment to see what Ranma and DarkAngel have been up to since Genma-san was killed,_ she thought. Stacy was _not_ going to be happy to see her, but she could live with that. Nabiki had been right — Japan owed a debt to the murdered sisters, and she was here to help pay it whether DarkAngel liked it or not.

Once again, the brunette martial artist decided that her decision to have a public identity rather than a secret one had been the right choice — true, it made it somewhat more difficult to just relax and have fun in public, but she couldn’t be blindsided the way DarkAngel was about to be. Chrysanthemum had been shocked at how _easy_ it had been to figure out that Danville Stacy was DarkAngel once they had two points of contact — Genma and DarkAngel, and Ranma and Stacy.

_But that’s something only martial artists familiar with Genma’s style are likely to pick up on, and the number that_ can _pick it up is going to fall off now that he’s dead._ She glanced at her watch as she strode toward the taxi pickup. It looked like if perhaps she’d have time for a short nap before her visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remember one story told by someone who interviewed Marilyn Monroe. They were walking along the street, with her in blue jeans and a jacket and no make up to speak of, and no one was giving them a second glance. When he commented on their anonymity, she said, "Oh, you want to be seen with Marilyn Monroe." He had no idea what she did, but something about her changed and suddenly they were being mobbed as everyone around recognized her. I thought that was a cool little story and decided to give Chrysanthemum the same ability.


	18. Laying the Groundwork

Chrysanthemum was feeling edgy. As she’d moved through the usual city pedestrians on her way to Stacy Hunter’s apartment from where the taxi had dropped her off several blocks away, she’d quickly realized that her talent for fading into a crowd didn’t work as well when most of that crowd was made up of Europeans. _Or at least, people of European descent,_ she reminded herself. _Be careful, some Americans take real offense at being called European._ Either way, she was attracting more attention than usual when in her civilian garb and it was making her jumpy.

Then she turned the sidewalk corner and her stride broke, eyes widening at the sight of policemen flanking the front entrance to Stacy’s apartment building, the two men in the Kevlar vests and helmets that they usually wore for riots. Chrysanthemum quickly recovered her bearings and surreptitiously glanced around — good, the other people on the street were showing their unease with the police presence, her own reaction should go unnoticed. Keeping her pace even, she did her best to ignore how the policemen tensed up and their eyes followed her as she walked past them and kept going up the street. Why were they singling her out? _Idiot, Ranma’s staying with Hunter-san, whatever happened must involve the yakuza somehow — and you’re the only person on the street that’s Japanese. Just keep going for a few blocks, then find a place to sit and check the internet for news, like you should have before you left the hotel._ But in truth, she couldn’t blame herself too harshly. For the Tokyo Super Squad, adventure came to them — they didn’t have to chase it.

A few blocks later she came to a sidewalk café, and with it too early for the afternoon rush a table was available far enough from any other customers for public privacy. A few minutes later she had her order in, her tablet out, and felt herself going cold at what she found on the news sites. _This makes no sense at all! The yakuza are businessmen, however ugly their business might be. Things are already stirred up, and targeting Ranma, much less the little girl, is just going to make things worse._ Of course, shooting the Stanson sisters on the grounds of the US embassy in Japan hadn’t made sense, either....

She didn’t have answers, and it looked like there wasn’t going to be an easy way to get to DarkAngel to ask her for her opinion. Fortunately, Stacy and Ranma weren’t her only points of contact in Hudson City.

/\

Sergeant Amado dropped into the seat at his desk, leaned back, and closed his eyes as he took deep, even breaths to calm the anger raging and snarling, demanding to be let out. It had been even worse than he’d feared as soon as he learned the identities of the gurentai Ranma had put in the hospital — and more important, that they worked for the Myamiji-kai, the only yakuza gang they’d ruled out so far. _Losing your temper didn’t help, George. What’s this, the third superior you’ve ripped on? Sooner or later you’re going curse out one that won’t let it go just because you’re the best. And at least when he gave you a free hand he left you a few men._ He snorted at the thought. _Yeah, right. While he focused pretty much everything the department has back on the Myamiji-kai, I have all of four men for all the rest. And_ right _after ... DarkAngel was able to narrow down which group of yakuza thugs —_

He jerked when his desk phone rang, sat up with a sigh, and picked up the handset. “Sergeant Amado here, if you have the crime, I have the time,” he said in greeting.

There was a moment of silence (not unusual for that particular opening — something else his superiors had commented on less than favorably), then a pleasantly young female voice said, _“Sergeant Amado, this is Kiku ... ah, Chrysanthemum of the Tokyo Super Squad. I just arrived in Hudson City, and was wondering if we could meet for dinner.”_

George straightened in his seat. “I wasn’t aware that Japanese law enforcement had been cleared to send anyone.”

_“We are not, I am here on a strictly unofficial basis ... because of Ranma and Genma.”_

“I see.” George frowned as his thoughts raced. If she wasn’t in town as an official representative ... “Do you have any way to verify your identity?” he asked. While he figured she was who she claimed to be, as unpredictable as the yakuza had been throughout the whole mess it paid to be sure.

 _“Of course,”_ Chrysanthemum replied. _“A few days back you received an email detailing our records on Ranma and Genma. If you open it up and read down to the paragraph that details Genma’s record, you will find that the first letter of the first sentences of that paragraph spell out his name. You will find the same thing for Ranma.”_

George’s eyebrows lifted as he brought up the email in question. Sure enough, the names were there. “Do you always sign your work that way?” he asked.

 _“Any reports I write that I’m not putting my name to, yes, in some way,”_ she replied. _“In this case, the police asked me to write it up, to make sure that their official records were consistent with Genma and Ranma’s actual personalities. So, how about that dinner?”_

/oOo\

Bluejay silently coasted down toward the nighttime black-on-black shape of the mansion below and ahead of her, as her rising tension tightened her muscles and curdled her stomach until her clenched jaw was as much to keep from throwing up as it was her nerves. _Hey, it could be worse. At least you aren’t following some private jet cross-country, with no idea how long the flight will be or where you’re going,_ she told herself. It didn’t help.

Then the roof was coming up toward her and she changed her angle and spread her wings to their maximum extension, let her momentum swing her feet down even as her speed dropped to practically nothing. Her knees flexed, absorbing the last of her momentum as she touched down, and she crouched in the dark and waited for any hint that her approach had been noticed by the mansion’s inhabitants. The minutes ticked by — nothing. Sighing with relief, she crawled to the edge of the roof and peeked over the edge. Her face tightened at the sight. There were a _lot_ of windows, and she needed to place one of DarkAngel’s _extremely_ high-tech bugs on the glass of each and every one of them ... and those of the _other_ three sides of the building. The tiny devices would be facing the wrong way for visuals, but their previously unmentioned ability to pick up audio from the rooms would work just fine. And of course, she needed to get inside the garage to place a few there as well ... again. It was going to be a long night. _When this is over, I’m going to hit a few fatcats for fun, then take a_ long _vacation._ She glanced around. _Let’s see, the garage should be over_ that _way._

/\

Ryu turned from the window and let the drapes fall closed. A few memory-guided steps through the dark and he lay down on the guest room bed and stared up toward the invisible ceiling. It was good to know that his limited hang-gliding experience wasn’t wasted, and lucky that his room was on the top floor on the side of the mansion facing the best approach the current light winds dictated for a gliding (and therefore silent) approach. He didn’t know who the flyer now on the roof was, wouldn’t be able to identify him or her later — all he’d seen was a hint of outlines against the stars. But whoever it was, was perhaps an ally of the DarkAngel his current employer was worried about ... and thought Ranma was with.

_Come to me, Ranma, and let us see which of us best deserves the Umisenken._

/\

Ranma ... Cherub ... shifted where he sat on a roof across the street from the main gate in the wall surrounding the mansion Deborah Manning had been brought to, that Stacy ... DarkAngel said was the main center of the Sawakiri-gumi yakuza. He was happy to be spending time in his male form beyond the occasional spar with Peng-sensei, but was fighting something he was all too familiar with from his time in Nerima, or more specifically Furinkan High School — boredom. He had thought that the two of them would be sneaking in to bug the mansion while Bluejay kept watch from outside, and the way the roles had been reversed had been an unpleasant surprise. Now it seemed like hours since Bluejay had left to circle around for the best angle of approach to the mansion, and Cherub was eager to _do_ something. By this time, anything.

He shifted again, and DarkAngel glanced over at him from where she crouched several yards away. She sighed, then glanced back to make sure once again that the taller building behind them masked their presence and scooted over next to her ward. “I know, it’s boring, stakeouts always are,” she murmured. “When Bluejay gets back we can move somewhere out of line-of-sight and relax while B.P’s computers do the listening for us.”

Cherub nodded. “Let’s hope she hurries.”

“No, let’s hope she _doesn’t_ hurry,” DarkAngel replied instantly. “Let’s hope she takes as long as she needs to get it done without being seen.” When Cherub reluctantly nodded with a sigh, she added, “I managed to modify the meditation technique your father taught me, it lets me stay alert while not being aware of time passing. It helps nights like this go by a lot quicker.”

“I could have used that at my last school,” Cherub said with a grin.

DarkAngel frowned a warning. “You are _not_ using that technique at school, not if you want to keep helping me. Your grades come first.”

Cherub grimaced as the Barstool Prophet’s chuckle at the exchange came through their ear buds. He opened his mouth for a rebuttal, only to pause, stiffening.

DarkAngel glanced at her ward as he slowly shifted up into a crouch, then she glanced around as nonchalantly as she could. “What is it?” she murmured.

“Someone’s behind us,” he replied softly, “someone pretty good, too, to get this close without me noticing.”

She nodded. “Got it, follow my lead.” She scooted away from Cherub back to her previous location. As soon as she got there she spun in place, rising and swirling her cape behind her to clear her arms, using the motion to hide palming one of her halo boomerangs and holding it out of sight by her side. She glanced over to see with approval that Cherub had also turned and risen, though he didn’t have any halo boomerangs of his own — that would come after they’d had the chance to design some that fit his own motif and he’d had a chance to practice. “It can’t be comfortable on that fire escape,” she called out, voice at regular speaking volume, “why don’t you come up and join us?”

For a long moment the two waited tensely as nothing happened, then a female figure sprang into view, spinning forward to land lightly on her feet facing them. The woman was covered in loose, mottled-dark clothing, feet in black tabi boots, hands gloved, her head and lower face covered by a mask. She straightened from her landing and slowly walked toward the two, empty hands spread. “You’ve gotten better over the years,” she said to Cherub. Her soft voice was young, without hesitation.

Cherub frowned, wracking his brain as he tried to think of who she could be. She thought she knew him, or at least had met him. What with the dark and her concealing clothing he couldn’t see any recognizable features, but her voice sounded vaguely familiar and the way she moved ... “Kiku?”

“Yes, Kiku, but not officially,” their guest replied.

“I take it you know each other?” DarkAngel asked, straightening when she saw Cherub relax.

“Yes,” Cherub replied, “this is Kiku — Chrysanthemum in English, the martial artist on the Tokyo Super Squad.”

DarkAngel slipped the halo boomerang back into its sheath. “Glad to meet you, but I thought our people told your people that we didn’t need any help just yet. And how did you find us?”

“I am here on a strictly unofficial basis, hence the lack of my usual uniform,” Chrysanthemum said with a shrug. “We were shamed by the kidnapping and murder of the Stanson sisters, and owe Ranma for what he and Genma did on our behalf. After we got involved in the mess in Nerima — Akane is safe with the Champions at Millennium City, by the way.” The cloth covering her lower face shifted as she smiled at Cherub’s sigh of relief — with the after dark stakeout, he wasn’t going to get a chance to make his usual late night call to the Tendo home. Chrysanthemum continued, “Hopefully, the public will never know I was here, or at least that I was the one to help out. As for how I found you, the very nice Sergeant Amado who asked us about Ranma and Genma suggested that this particular collection of yakuza might be the one to pay attention to. So,” she added, focusing on the blue-clad teenager, “what do I call you?”

When her ward hesitated, DarkAngel answered, “Cherub.”

“Cherub?” the newcomer repeated in disbelief.

“Cherub,” DarkAngel reiterated firmly.

Cherub ground his teeth when Chrysanthemum began to snicker. “Yes, laugh it up now,” he growled. “After I get through with that name —”

He broke off, both he and DarkAngel stiffening when the Barstool Prophet’s voice sounded in their ears. _“Bluejay’s done, she’s on her way back now.”_

DarkAngel passed on the message to the curious Chrysanthemum, and the three searched the star-speckled sky for the returning sort-of-villain. It was Cherub that spotted her low approach, and that only seconds before she ghosted down to a landing on the roof.

DarkAngel sighed with relief as Bluejay rose from her landing crouch and walked toward them. “Bluejay, you made it back.” At Bluejay’s obvious interest in the newcomer, she added, “This is ... a friend from Japan, here to help out. Everything go all right?”

Bluejay nodded a greeting to Chrysanthemum and Cherub, then turned to DarkAngel and shook her head. “No, it didn’t. I wasn’t seen and was able to bug all the windows, but I couldn’t get into the garage — I could have gotten past the security, but this time there was no side door and no way to open the vehicle entrance quietly.”

“Damn!” DarkAngel softly cursed, then turned to look at the upper part of the mansion visible over the estate wall. “Not good, not good at all. I was hoping to be able to catch them on the move. Did you at least put some bugs on the outside of the garage?”

“Uh ... no. No, I didn’t think of that,” Bluejay replied.

“I’m afraid you’re going back to do just that, place a dozen or so all along the wall above the garage door,” DarkAngel said. She paused in thought for a long moment, then sighed. “After that, get back to the airport and get some sleep in your own jet, just in case. B.P., after you reactivate the bugs keeping an eye on the Sawakiri-gumi’s private jets, can you set the bugs over the garage to automatically fire tracker darts at any vehicles other than motorcycles that leave?” At his affirmative response, she continued, “Do so, and track any that do. If any head for the airport, let Bluejay know. Assuming everything works out tomorrow ... today, I guess ... we’ll be going in after dark tonight. Hopefully, the bugs will pick up Deborah Manning’s voice and give us at least a rough idea of where in the mansion she is. But even if they don’t, without the bugs in the garage we can’t wait.”

Bluejay sighed but nodded, and a few moments later she was over the edge of the roof and gliding down to the alley floor, on her way to the fire escape of the same higher building she had used before to get the height needed for her silent approach to the mansion.

DarkAngel turned to the others. “We’ll wait out as much of the night as we can” _— before Ranma and I have to sneak past the police to get back into our own apartment —_ “so get as much rest today as you can, tonight is going to be an exciting one.” She settled back down on the roof and waved the other two down to join her. “So Chrysanthemum, what’s it like to be on a Japanese superteam?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tabi boots, known in Japan as jika-tabi, are the soft-soled boots with the separate toe.


	19. Making Plans

Night again, and Deborah lay in the bed she shared with her kidnapper and rapist, as far from him as the bed allowed.  When he’d finished using her body again and had faded off to sleep she’d moved over, and now she lay in the dark staring over at the digital clock as she listened to his soft breathing and struggled to stay awake.

Tonight, she was getting out.

She was in the best physical shape she’d been in since her kidnapping — it had been days since she’d given Morita an excuse to beat her, and since arriving here he hadn’t even slapped her around.  Perhaps it had something to do with the old man that her ‘master’ had spoken to, the one he called ‘Oyabun’.  That was some kind of bigwig in the yakuza, wasn’t it?  And she thought she’d detected some  ... disapproval, perhaps ... in his attitude toward Morita.

Regardless, she was as physically fit as she was likely to get, she could hang by her hands from the bedroom’s third story window and depend on her high school gymnastics class to keep the rest of the drop from hurting her too badly ... and that day her ‘master’ had ordered her to open the bedroom window while remaining in the nude — apparently settling for petty discomfort in place of abuse.  She didn’t think that her parents had ever realized that she’d learned how to fool the security system on her bedroom window when she was a teenager so she could sneak out at night, and the security here was similar enough that she _thought_ she’d managed it.

Now she just needed to stay awake while everyone else in the house fell asleep, open the window again without waking up Morita, get down to the lawn and over the outside walls somehow (some trees close to the wall she could see from her window were probably her best bet), and hope she found someone that could get her away before she was caught again or froze to death in the New Jersey winter night.

But the hardest part was going to be staying awake as she waited.

/oOo\

_Another night, same place_ , Cherub thought, glancing around the roof he had become intimately familiar with the previous night while waiting all too many hours for Bluejay to return from her mission bugging the mansion, and then standing guard for most of the rest of the night.  And here he was waiting for Bluejay _again_ , and Chrysanthemum as well — in spite of the need to evade the police keeping watch on their apartment, DarkAngel and Cherub had been the first to arrive.  (The trapdoor to the apartment directly below had helped, and the secret panel that opened onto a shaft down to a basement that apparently didn’t open into the rest of the building.  Stacy had said something about a speakeasy when she’d first showed it to Ranma, whatever that was — Ranma had been too busy to ask, appreciating the cabinets and drawers full of weapons and equipment and stands with extra costumes, now extra crowded with his as well.)

Not that his day had been _boring_ — the Danvilles had rejected the idea of their adopted daughter returning to school so long as she needed a police guard (to the school’s poorly hidden relief, from what Ranma had understood of the Danvilles’ grumbling), and had asked Stacy and Ranma to watch her.  Ranma had been worried that the events in the park might have mentally scarred his sister, but there had been no sign of it.  When she commented on the lack of impact Stacy pointed out that Kat hadn’t actually seen what Ranma had done to their stalkers, and the little girl’s absolute faith in her big ‘sister’ to take care of her had kept her from being afraid.  Instead she’d been excited, and now she wanted to be just like Ranma.  While Stacy’s apartment wasn’t big enough for Ranma to train, the space was perfectly adequate for _Kat_ , and she’d demanded lessons.  Between lessons, Kat’s demands for more stories of their father and the video games Stacy pulled out for the two while she did what she could of her day job online kept Ranma occupied.  The day had flown by, filled with the laughter of a little girl.

Still, as much as Ranma had enjoyed the day, it hadn’t been very _active_ , certainly not as much as he was used to, and he wanted to _move_.  Instead, he was again stuck in place, waiting.  Then he almost attacked Bluejay when she ghosted down out of the night, and a few minutes later Chrysanthemum spun up from the fire escape to land in a crouch, again in the same nondescript clothing from the previous night.  Finally!  “All right, we’re all here, let’s go!”

The other three chuckled as DarkAngel shook her head.  “Sorry, Cherub, but we’re waiting for one more.”

“What?  Who?  Since when?” Cherub demanded.

“Since just now,” DarkAngel replied, tapping her earpiece.  “B.P just told me that the Answer will be joining us, and bringing something B.P.’s been working on all day.  And that reminds me.”  She pulled two earpieces out of her belt pouch, handed Bluejay the one the thief had used the previous night, and the other to Chrysanthemum.  “Your links to B.P., he’ll keep track of everyone, pass messages, coordinate.  If he can stay awake, that is,” she added as the other two fitted on their earpieces.  “B.P. will pass messages, coordinate, keep track of where we are.  If he can stay awake, that is,” she added as the other two fitted on their earpieces.  “B.P., did you get _any_ sleep today?”

_“No, but no need to worry about me,”_ B.P. replied through the earpieces.  _“I’m not going to be doing any fighting, and the stims should last the last few hours they’ll be needed.  I can crash for a couple days when this is all over.  The Answer should be there in a few minutes with my little contribution to tonight’s festivities.”_

Cherub plopped back down onto the roof, grumbling to renewed chuckles.

B.P. was as good as his word, and less than ten minutes later a tall, dark-haired man wearing a black suit and trench coat, with a black domino mask climbed onto the roof from the fire escape.  Cherub watched him carefully as he approached the group.  He said, “You move well, kung fu?  The real thing, not what usually passes for it in the cities.”

The Answer looked over what little he could see of the blue and black costumed younger man rising to his feet.  “You see clearly,” he replied, “I was trained by monks.  You?”

Cherub opened his mouth to proudly proclaim his school, only to pause when DarkAngel not so discreetly elbowed him in the side.  _Right, ‘discretion’_ , he thought, remembering Stacy’s lecture — no revealing personal details unless absolutely necessary, even to allies.  “A little of this, a little of that, whatever does the job,” he finally replied.  _That’s as good a description of the Anything Goes school as any._

DarkAngel stepped forward.  “Bluejay, Chrysanthemum, Cherub, this is the Answer, Hudson City’s most recent nonlethal vigilante, at least until you arrived, Cherub.  Answer, these are Chrysanthemum from Tokyo, here in disguise because her presence isn’t sanctioned by either the Japanese or US governments, and my new partner Cherub.  I believe you at least know of Bluejay.”

The Answer bowed to Cherub and Chrysanthemum, then turned to gaze thoughtfully at Bluejay.  “Yes, I have heard of you, but nothing good — a thief and a libertine.  I am happy to see you in such company.”

Bluejay stiffened. Beside her, DarkAngel gritted her teeth in frustration, and laid a restraining hand on her friend’s shoulder.  The Answer was more or less correct, but that wasn’t exactly what needed to be said at the moment.

Bluejay paused at the touch and fought to swallow her anger — a shouting match was _also_ not exactly what they needed at the moment.  “Yes, well, even a thief and a libertine has her limits, and sex slavery and murder exceed mine,” she ground out.  “And I’m sure their _sterling_ qualities will rub off on me if I hang around them long enough.  Now B.P. said you had something for us?”

“Correct,” the Answer replied, unfazed at her hostile tone.  Reaching underneath his trench coat’s chest overlap, he pulled out a thin metal-backed glass pad, then knelt to lay it on the roof.  He looked up and motioned the rest to gather around, then pulled another pad covered with buttons.

“Here is our target,” he said, pushing a button.  A faintly glowing hologram in the shape of the outside walls of the mansion sprang into existence above the pad on the roof.  The image was solid, but lacked any defining details other than windows.  “Today B.P. continued to monitor the bugs you emplaced last night,” he nodded toward Bluejay, “and picked up the voices of three women that _might_ be our kidnapped Deborah Manning.”  He pressed another button and three windows blinked, one at the back and two on the right side, then the walls faded away to reveal the rooms’ interiors.  They were filled with furniture — tables, chairs, shelves, a bed in the room at the back — but again were simply shapes with no defining features.

“Where do you get these marvelous toys?” Bluejay breathed in awe.  “These are mapped by echo location, aren’t they?  From the bugs I planted.”

_“Yes, they are,”_ B.P. responded, _“but passive, just in case they might have something that could detect an active system.  And only the rooms with outside windows, we have nothing on the building’s interior.”_

DarkAngel added, “As for where they come from, there are people that quietly support the nonlethal vigilantes in Hudson City — just enough to hopefully give the few of us around an edge.”  She gazed at the image, its faint glow revealing her thoughtful frown.  “B.P., what are the percentages on matches?”

_“Sixty-three, seventy-one, and seventy-five.”_   With each percentage, the room at the rear then the two on the right strobed for a moment.

“Chrysanthemum, how are your stealth skills?”

The Japanese hero looked up from the three-dimensional map at the question, then shrugged.  “Rusty,” she replied, “the Tokyo Super Squad usually busts down doors rather than pick the locks, and we have Kodotai — Zodiac — for the undercover work.”

DarkAngel nodded her acknowledgement, considered the hologram for another long moment, then sighed.  She really didn’t want to do this, Cherub was _not_ ready to be out from under her wing even a little, but ... “I’m going to get into position under these side windows where the two most likely candidates were picked up.  Bluejay, I want you on the roof.  Get this window here open.”  She reached down to touch a window on the left side of the hologram, for one of the rooms where a match had been made.  “After that, keep an eye out for anyone — especially any woman — trying to flee across the lawn.  I know you don’t have any real offensive powers, but do your best to watch their backs.  Chrysanthemum, Answer, when Bluejay and I are in position I want you two to bust down the front doors.  Chrysanthemum, take the main door.  Answer, take the garage, slash a tire for each vehicle before moving into the house proper.  Once you’ve gotten everyone’s attention, I’ll go in from the side where our most likely candidates were and see what I can find, work my way toward the back and the less likely one.  Cherub, while they’re knocking on the front doors, slip around the side and join me — I’ll leave the window open, close it behind you.”

She looked up, around at the others.  “Everyone okay with that?”  At the nods and murmurs of agreement, she continued, “B.P. will be our coordinator, but _don’t_ get distracted in the middle of a fight — over half of the nonlethal vigilantes in Hudson City are here tonight, it can’t afford to lose any of us.  Cherub, I know you aren’t used to fighting in tandem with someone else — don’t lose track of me, we don’t need any friendly fire incidents.”  When Cherub looked confused, she added, “It doesn’t do much good to bring a friend to a fight if you attack him by mistake.”  Cherub grimaced but nodded, as Chrysanthemum and Bluejay chuckled.

DarkAngel waited until the levity died down, then said, “Bluejay, get started.  Chrysanthemum, Answer, Cherub, give us a quarter hour then get into position and wait B.P.’s word.”

“You’re on, Boss,” Bluejay replied, saluting jauntily before nodding with a smile at Cherub and Chrysanthemum, glaring at the Answer, and diving off the back of the roof on the side away from the mansion.

DarkAngel sighed, nodded to the others as well, then also dove off the back of the roof, her own grapple gun out, twisting to fire it at the building she’d just abandoned.

Even as she swooped down to the alley floor, she wondered if she should have mentioned that Sergeant Amado was in a car around the corner, listening.  Her old friend wouldn’t be able to hear when the doors were kicked in, but gunfire was another matter.  Fifteen minutes, half an hour tops after the first shots, and the area would almost certainly be swarming with cops.

_No, you made the right call,_ she decided yet again. _Bluejay is nervous enough already, no need to make it worse and she can just fly away when it’s over.  And I doubt Chrysanthemum would be happy about it either, not when she’s here on her own, and she can probably just hop a wall when she wants to leave — Ranma could, after all.  No, let’s keep everyone focused on what’s in front of them instead of worrying about their backs._

But keeping that kind of secret left a bad taste in her mouth.


	20. Opening Gambits

In her ‘master’s’ bed, Deborah jerked when the alarm blared, instantly awake — and instantly aware.  She’d fallen asleep!  Had she lost her best chance?  What was happening?!

Beside her, Morita jerked upright and swore (at least, she assumed he swore — she didn’t understand a single word, but the tone was right).  Even as the alarm cut off, he threw the covers back and rolled out of bed.  He hastily pulled on a shirt and trousers before unlocking and opening one of the cases he’d brought with him, a plain metal box unlike the others of inlaid lacquered wood, to pull out an automatic pistol.  He pressed the release for the magazine, caught it as it dropped, made sure it was fully loaded, then slapped it back into place, chambered a round, and grabbed a handful of extra magazines out of the box.  “Stay here,” he commanded, and hurried from the room, pausing only long enough to close the door.  She heard the click of the door’s lock before his footsteps raced down the hall.

_Well, damn!_   Deborah hurried to the window, and her heart sank at the bright light shining down on the snow-white lawn that surrounded the mansion.  The floodlights must have gone on at the same time the alarm went off, and she couldn’t imagine that with those lights there weren’t also alert eyes watching over the landscaping they’d revealed with guns to back them up.  Her chance of quietly slipping away was gone.

She stared out the window for a long moment before shivering, goosebumps running the length of her naked body, then turned back to the room to stride to the case Morita had just opened.  _If that opportunity is gone, let’s see if a new one has opened up._   She pushed up on the lid, and grinned as it opened easily; she’d thought she hadn’t heard a latching click when Morita had closed it.  And if it had held extra magazines, maybe ... _Yes!_ she exulted, barely suppressing a happy shout as the rising lid revealed a second pistol and several magazines that Morita had left behind in his haste.  _Whatever happens, I am_ not _going alone._

Plucking the pistol from its molded seat, she frowned at the empty hole at the seat of the grip.  Thankfully, though, her ‘master’ had just shown her what to do.  A few fumbled seconds had the magazine shoved up into position, and she slapped the base, just like the action heroes in the movies some of her more stupid dates had taken her to.  Why an ostensibly intelligent man would think a girl he hardly knew would like action movies, she had no idea.  _But this isn’t an action movie, or I’d have been rescued on the first night, before he raped me,_ she thought bitterly.  _So, since I’m not going to have a hero charging to my rescue or an infinite supply of bullets, how do you get this thing_ out _of that hole?_   She fumbled with the various switches and buttons until the magazine dropped out to land on the carpet with a soft thud.

She knelt to pick up the magazine, slapped it back into place, chambered a round (again, just like those action heroes), then rose to grab the extra magazine and close the box before looking around.  _Now what?  I can shoot the lock, get out at any time, but ..._   She paused, listening.  Nothing.  But how good was the room’s soundproofing?  Best to wait for a bit until things got noisy enough to cover the sound of the shot, or at least enough that the sound would be lost in the chaos.

_And if my so-called ‘master’ comes back first, I can always just shoot him and take my chances with the window.  But until then, I’d better get out of sight._

She glanced around the room.  _The closet’s too obvious.  The bathroom has nowhere to hide, I’ll be instantly seen by anyone that opens the door.  The space under the bed is just too cliché, anyone looking for me is bound to check and it would leave me helpless besides, no way to get out fast._   Then her eyes fell on a pair of tiny doors under the wooden bookcase affixed to the wall.  She hurried over and pulled them open, and smiled at what she found — a shelf splitting the limited space in half, blankets both below and above.  She thought, just barely enough space.  A quick test showed the shelf was sitting on studs, not fixed in place.  _Perfect_.

A few minutes’ work had the shelf out and underneath the bed, blocked from sight by the blankets that had occupied the cubbyhole, and then she was curled on her side within the newly-emptied space with a blanket as a pillow, the doors closed and gun in hand, waiting.

/oOo\

When the alarm sounded, Ryu opened his eyes and grinned briefly before sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of his bed.  He was pleased that Ranma wasn’t going to make him wait.

Rising, he quickly pulled on his clothes and strode from his room even as he fitted in an earbug with an attached wire mic.  “Kumon Ryu, here,” he said in his native Japanese, “Where’s the Nakamua-san, and what’s the situation?”

_“The mansion is under attack by vigilantes,”_ the lucky soul currently in charge of the mansion’s security center replied.  _“The oyabun is in no danger, they came through the front, but he is waiting for you to join him before leaving his room.”_

“Excellent,” Ryu said with a smile — it was always nice to have a principle that actually had some common sense.  “Have the attackers been identified?”

_“One of them is the Answer, a fairly new nonlethal vigilante.  The other is an unknown woman.”_

Ryu paused outside the door to the oyabun’s bedroom.  He asked, “Unknown?  You don’t recognize her costume?”

_“She isn’t wearing one.”_

“I see.”  Ryu frowned, disappointed that Ranma wasn’t one of the attackers but curious about the unknown woman, then stiffened as the sound of gunshots echoed through the mansion.  He waited a long moment, then shrugged when the security center didn’t say anything before knocking on the door and identifying himself.  A moment later, after the guard inside verified that he was who he claimed, they were on their way to the security center, an armed guard in front and behind while Ryu walked beside the oyabun.

Then Morita came around the corner of the hallway ahead of them, and his bare feet skidded on the wood floor as he instantly stopped.  His eyes went cross-eyed as he stared at the pistol barrel pressed against his nose, then he slowly opened his hand and let his pistol drop onto his foot.  He glanced over the guard’s shoulder at the rest of the party, and said, “Nakamura-sama, I am here to serve.”

The older man gazed at him for a long moment, face expressionless, then nodded.  “You may join us,” he said.

Morita swallowed a sigh of relief, bent to retrieve his pistol, then at Ryu’s motioned direction joined the guard at the front.

/\

The security center was tense, but calm — though the tension ratcheted up considerably when the oyabun and his guards came through the door, Morita peeling off to one side.  Nakamura accepted his underlings’ acknowledgement of his presence and waved them back to their posts, except for his chief of security.  “Tanaka, what are the dispositions of your men?” he asked.

“The intruders rolled over the first responders to the alarm without breaking stride, so I’ve pulled men from ...”

Ryu listened to the report with half an ear as he focused on the wall of monitors, eyes searching.  He quickly found the Answer that he’d read about before coming to Hudson City in his black suit and trenchcoat but just as quickly moved on.  The man moved well, but was not a major threat; soon enough Security would set up a roadblock he couldn’t get through, and he would withdraw, perhaps even be trapped.  Where was  ... there!  A downward angled camera showed a masked woman in a luxurious hallway, easily dealing with several men.  She was dressed in mottled dark clothing, covered so thoroughly not even her hair could be seen.  If that _was_ a superhero costume, it was an unusually drab one, neither formfitting, brightly colored nor based on a theme.  Of course, not all of the heroes went the bright, splashy route, and the more lethal vigilantes of Hudson City didn’t wear costumes of any sort.  She could simply be another newcomer, but Ryu frowned as she bounced the only man still standing off a wall, then yanked his gun out of his hand (probably breaking fingers in the process) and broke his jaw with a spinning backfist.  There was something in the way she moved....

“Chrysanthemum.”

“What was that?” Nakamura demanded.  Tanaka broke off his report as the oyabun turned to his bodyguard, an irritated edge to his voice.

She’d moved out of sight of the camera, but Ryu quickly found her on another monitor and pointed at the screen.  “The woman is Chrysanthemum of the Tokyo Super Squad.”

Nakamura instantly focused on the figure, all trace of irritation gone.  He asked, “How certain are you?”

“Absolutely.  She may be able to disguise her appearance, but not her style, the way she moves.  It’s Chrysanthemum.”

Nakamura frowned thoughtfully as he watched Chrysanthemum demolish several unarmed underlings — not guards, simply members of the Clan doing what they could under their oyabun’s eye.  “The Americans are touchy about their sovereignty,” he mused, “so it is unlikely that she has official permission to be here, or that the rest of the Tokyo Super Squad is with her.  Except perhaps Zodiac, but the shapechanger isn’t a frontline fighter.”

Ryu shrugged.  “Maybe, that would explain the lack of her usual costume, but she doesn’t _need_ the rest of her team,” he said.  “Unless someone gets in a very lucky shot, none of your men are going to be able to do more than slow her down.”

“Can you deal with her?”

Ryu snorted.  “Yes, of course.  She’s a mongrel, dependent on her magic toys to make up for her lack of skill in the true Art.  But the property damage would be extensive.”

“Property damage does not concern me.  Do it.”

Ryu nodded with a grin.  “Great!  Let me borrow Tanaka-san for a few minutes.”  The Oyabun lifted an eyebrow but nodded, and Ryu and Tanaka stepped over to a screen with a map of the mansion for several whispered minutes before Ryu strode from the room.

Nakamura had spent those minutes watching Chrysanthemum’s progress as it shifted to another monitor, a thoughtful frown on his face, and as soon as Tanaka rejoined him, he said, “The police are unlikely to ignore this disturbance, and there is no guarantee that those that respond will be in our employ.  Correct?”

Tanaka reluctantly nodded.  “Yes, sir.  And even if the first responders were on our payroll, they would almost certainly be quickly followed by members of the special unit tasked with investigating us.  The police assigned to that unit have proven incorruptible.”

“So I remembered.  But if there is nothing for them to find, then this becomes no more than another vigilante assault in the abundance this city produces.  Kill the slaves on the property and dispose of the bodies.”

Tanaka grimaced at the waste, but had to agree that they had no choice.  He nodded to one of his subordinates at a nearby desk, and the man picked up his phone to pass the word.

“Sir!  We have more intruders!”

Tanaka’s head whipped around, and two quick steps had him standing beside his subordinate’s chair.  “Where?  Who?” he demanded.

“On the third floor, the back of the mansion.  Monitor C-14, sir.”

Tanaka search the bank of monitors … there!  The screen displayed the blonde DarkAngel in her black bodysuit and black red-trimmed cape moving so smoothly she seemed to practically glide down the hallway.  “DarkAngel,” he snarled even as he noticed the second figure behind her, a young male in a dark blue costume.

Beside him, Nakamura chuckled.  “And that must be our errant Ranma.  Kumon-san will be so disappointed he missed him.”

/oOo\

Jacqueline Houseman, Jacky to her friends, jerked awake at the sound of an alarm shrilling in the hallway.  The blonde winced slightly at the sudden glare of floodlights coming through her window as she sat up in bed — her own bed for a change, for once she hadn’t been tapped as a bedwarmer for one of the thugs that infested this mansion like cockroaches.

_But you’ve been such an_ enthusiastic _bedwarmer, haven’t you?_ She thought bitterly.  _Of_ course _they’ve been taking turns at you._   Jacky’s stomach roiled at the thought, but she sternly suppressed her nausea.  True, the acting she’d been doing wasn’t what she’d expected when the talent agency she’d signed up with had called her in for an interview.  But her performance had been appreciated enough by her ‘audience’ that she’d been kept at the mansion for months while girl after girl had cycled through, staying for a few weeks, sometimes only days, before being sent on to brothels in Japan.  And while she suspected her current life wasn’t all that different from the brothels, just less sex and more cleaning, at least it was still in the United States.  Not that that had stopped her from considering diving headfirst from one of the third story windows over the driveway a few times.

“Wha’s goin’ on?”

The sleep-bleary voice belonged to Moira Anderson, her current roommate.  Jacky looked over to find the redhead, dressed in the practically-not-there lingerie all the girls were given for night wear, levering herself up on an elbow as she rubbed at her eyes.  (Jacky had noticed over the months that blondes and redheads were seriously oversampled, maybe they fetched better prices in Japan?)  “I don’t know,” Jacky said.  “It’s something big, though, this hasn’t happened before.”

“It hasn’t?”  Moira rolled out of bed and dashed to the window to stare out across the brightly lit snow-covered lawn.  “I can’t see anyone out there,” she said excitedly, “maybe this is our chance!  Out the window and across the lawn, help each other over the wall, and we’re gone!”

Jackie grabbed her hand just as she was reaching for the window latch.  “Wait!  Not yet, it too soon, we need to wait,” she urged when the other girl turned to stare at her incredulously as she tugged, trying to get Jackie to let go of her.  “Whatever’s happening, it’s just barely started.  Let’s wait for a little bit until everyone’s attention is focused on whatever’s going on, see if we can figure out where it is and go the opposite direction.”

Moira stopped tugging as she briefly considered Jackie’s suggestion, then nodded.  “Smart thinking.  But how will we know?”

Jackie shrugged.  “I don’t know.  If nothing happens after a bit we can always go.  And let’s put on something warmer while we’re waiting, it’s _cold_ out there.”  She frowned.  The maid uniforms they wore while cleaning weren’t all that much better than their lingerie, in case any of the men felt like interrupting their assigned household tasks for a quickie, and the girls had never been given bathrobes.  But maybe they could wrap themselves in the blankets....


	21. The rumble is on!

Chrysanthemum moved slowly down yet another hallway, poised to leap in any direction as her eyes continually swept the view in front of her. Something was wrong.

She’d long since come to the conclusion that supervillains didn’t talk to each other much, and neither did their minions. Combined with the fact that even for villainous world-conquering organizations like DEMON or VIPER the job of minion had a fairly high turnover rate, and what institutional knowledge there was often failed to get passed on. And _that_ meant that tactics superheroes developed had a tendency to continue to work, and superhero teams _did_ pass along their institutional knowledge. For the current situation, that meant Chrysanthemum had been using the Tokyo Super Squad’s standard tactic for raiding a villain’s base while not knowing a thing about its internal layout — follow the route that the enemy least wants you to take, that’ll be where the most important stuff is.

That particular tactic had lead her into what she thought was about the middle of the mansion’s left wing and up to the second floor, leaving behind a trail of battered and unconscious thugs. (That was actually making her a little nervous — she was _also_ leaving behind a trail of various revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, and she had neither the time to render them harmless nor anyone guarding her back.) She had taken down several civilians at the top of the stairs, seen another duck around a corner halfway down the hall, and dove into the new cross-corridor just in time to see the heels of the man she was chasing as he ducked around the corner at the end — instead of trying to shoot her as she came around the corner herself.

He’d had a gun. Why hadn’t he tried to hold his ground when everyone else had, even unarmed? Something was wrong.

The mystical martial artist stopped, once again searching the empty hallway for any sign of a trap or ambush — nothing, not so much as a hint. She took another step forward, only to freeze as her sense of danger increased. _Okay, Kiku, you may be the bait but there’s no need to be stupid._ (She’d learned to think of herself by her hero name when in action long before she’d gone public and joined the Tokyo Super Squad — one couldn’t be too careful about possible surface-scanning mind-readers.) _There’s no point in being looked down upon by so-called ‘pure’ martial artists for having mystic capabilities if you don’t listen to them._

She quickly glanced back over her shoulder at the hallway she’d just left. The rooms on the opposite side of _that_ hallway were against an outer wall, so there’d be windows. She’d slip out one and come back in another floor up, that would take care of any nasty surprises while letting her still play her part. Refocusing on the hallway in front of her, she began to slowly back up.

/\

Ryu leaned against the wall, waiting in the dark — he hadn’t wanted any clue that the room was occupied by even so much as a hint of light under the door, so the first thing he’d done on reaching his ambush point was to turn off the room’s lights. Not that he’d been bored waiting in the dark, not with mentally reviewing every piece of news footage he could remember of Chrysanthemum’s fights. It probably wouldn’t matter, not with their relative skill levels and surprise on his side. But while he might have the edge in pure skill she had more than just an edge when it came to _experience_ , and he’d been in enough street fights to know that experience counted.

Then the voice of the yakuza handling his surveillance sounded in his earbud. _“Kiku is at the top of the stairs … she’s around the corner … in three more steps … two — wait, she’s stopped. She’s backing up!”_

Instantly, Ryu stepped away from the wall, turned around with his arms crossed over his chest, concentrated for a split second, and swung both arms wide.

/\

The flash of warning from her artificial mystic senses gave Chrysanthemum a split second to react, just long enough that when the wall to her right exploded out into the hallway, slamming pieces of the plasterboard and wood framing of typical American construction and the wood paneling that had covered it into the opposite wall, she’d already spun around and was diving back the way she come. She tucked into a roll, twisted as her momentum carried her back to her feet at the T-intersection, and stared wide-eyed at what was left of the walls on both side of the hallway just a little past where she’d been standing — whatever had caused the explosion had cut through both walls like tissue paper.

Then a tall, muscular, raven-haired young man in camouflage pants and a dark muscle shirt stepped out of the right side hole and she knew she was in trouble. {I am Kumon Ryu, and you, Kiku, are illegally trespassing,} the young man said in their native Japanese, grinning at her. {You aren’t the person I wanted to meet, I suppose I’ll have to go hunting for Ranma myself once this job’s over. But you’ll do for a consolation prize, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to push myself to win.}

It was all Chrysanthemum could do to keep from giving him an opening by freezing in place as her mind raced — he knew who she was! _No, he doesn’t, he can’t. And even if he does, as long as I keep my mouth shut and get away he can’t prove anything. Even as touchy as Americans can be about their sovereignty, they’ll accept an accomplished fact as long as they can pretend I was never here._

“What? Nothing to say? Where’s the usual snappy patter, the clever comebacks?” Ryu mocked. “Not that I suppose it matters.” Then he was flowing toward her, and even as she deflected and dodged his first two strikes she realized she was in _serious_ trouble.

/oOo\

For Cherub, this had been the oddest ‘fight’ that he had ever been in. On the one hand, it hadn’t been much of a fight — in fact, so far he hadn’t struck a single blow. DarkAngel had dealt with what little opposition they’d just encountered at a distance with the blunt version of her throwing halos, all he’d had to do was dodge a little gunfire the one time a thug got a shot off. On the other hand, they were fighting for a young woman’s life and freedom rather than personal glory and it had been dragging on and on, with DarkAngel growing more tense with every room they briefly checked without finding her. Still, they had only just reached the third and least likely room in which B.P. had indicated a woman that might be Deborah Manning had been heard, so —

_“DarkAngel, Cherub, Chrysanthemum is in trouble!”_

Both heroes jerked slightly at the sound of B.P.’s voice in their ears. DarkAngel asked, “What kind of trouble?”

_“Some guy by the sound of his voice but I don’t know what he said, it wasn’t in English,”_ B.P. responded. _“But it sounds like he’s out of her league — Chrysanthemum hasn’t said a word since he attacked her, but I’m picking up the sounds of a lot of property destruction and she’s more the subtle type. She bounces people off walls, not knock them down.”_

DarkAngel glanced around, considering her and Cherub’s location in the back of the right wing of the mansion. Chrysanthemum would have moved toward the left wing to give the Answer the center and spread out the defenders.... “Do you know where she is?”

_“Approximately, she was whispering her moves as she went. And from the sounds of it, it shouldn’t be hard to find her once you get close.”_

“Once _Cherub_ gets close, he’s the combat monster,” DarkAngel replied. “Cherub, the last room we checked, go out the window and up over the roof, let B.P. guide you. I’ll continue the search here.”

Cherub hesitated, remembering the night he and his father had arrived in Hudson City and prevented Deborah’s murder, the way she had clutched at him. “S-DarkAngel, are you sure — ?” he started to ask, only to break off as a dull thud reverberated through the mansion. “Right.” He spun around and ran for the previous room and its windows as the mansion seemed to shake.

Behind him, DarkAngel tried to door to their destination ... locked. She stepped back, and one kick against the lock sent the door slamming back on its hinges as she twisted to the side.

/oOo\

Chrysanthemum backpedalled frantically, struggling to get back out reach of her opponent, then flattened herself against a wall as another of those cutting whatever-they-weres, vertical this time, slashed through the space where she’d just been ... and showered her with more wood and plaster as the floor and ceiling peeled away from its path like water from the prow of a ship. Her earlier estimation of how much trouble she was in hadn’t _begun_ to cover it, in spite of the way Ryu had to telegraph his cutting distance strikes — the hallway cramped her ability to dodge, she was having to back up over ground covered with debris where those same strikes hadn’t already torn it up, when she had gotten close enough to strike back Ryu had shrugged off her blows, the riposte she’d ducked had punched another hole in the wall, and she hadn’t brought any of her offensive mystical tricks. She was supposed to be incognito and those tricks were too distinctively hers, and she hadn’t expected to face anything worse than standard yakuza trash.

Ryu hadn’t tried to stay in contact when she’d realized that her lovetaps weren’t doing anything but give him opportunities to strike back and backed off. He’d simply going back to his cutting attacks, and that had her concerned. He _had_ to know they were easily dodged ... like now —

Chrysanthemum sprang into the air, tucking into a ball for a split second as two more attacks slashed past her. She spun around, pushed off from a still mostly standing wall at an angle, twisted again to land back in the hallway T-intersection facing her enemy, and frowned behind the mask covering her lower face. Ryu was grinning — _That cannot be good...._

Chrysanthemum’s eyes widened as Ryu’s arms swiped outward again, sending out two more slashing arcs — but neither were aimed at her, one going into the floor and the other into the ceiling, both at an angle ... and both were _much_ wider than the previous attacks.

Then the floor underneath her dropped, slamming into the lower floor with a loud thud, sending her sprawling. Ryu had actually carved away the floor’s supports with the attacks she’d dodged! But there had been _two_ massive cutting attacks — she looked up just in time to see the second floor ceiling crashing down onto her.

/oOo\

By now, Sergeant Amado was shouting into his car’s radio mouthpiece. “I’m telling you, even if this doesn’t involve the Stanson/Manning case, _something_ is going on in there! Those _were_ gunshots I heard earlier, and —” He broke off his tirade as a rumbling sound washed over him and his partner. Even several blocks away from the mansion, the sound of massive property damage was clear through his unmarked patrol car’s open windows. “Did you hear that?” he demanded. “Now get off your ass and tell the cops on patrol to get here _right now_ — all hands and the cook! Or I swear I will _personally_ drop in and rip you a new one.”

_“Very well, but I’m making a special note that it was your call,”_ Sergeant Macky responded. _“Don’t go barging in until they get there.”_

Amado snarled, “Yeah, don’t worry, jackass, I won’t do you the favor of getting myself killed.” He broke off the call and set the headset back in its rest as he listened to the all-hands alert.

“Macky _really_ didn’t want to listen to you,” Sergeant Abbate noted from the passenger’s seat. “For a minute, I thought he was going to use the excuse that you hadn’t told anyone we’d be here to blow you off.”

“He wouldn’t have dared,” Amado replied absentmindedly as he yet again drew his revolver and made sure it was in working order. “He knows that clearing our presence with the locals is a courtesy, not a requirement. Even without that preclearance his career would have been over if he refused, if he had a job left at all.”

Abbate shrugged. “True, and you say he has to know that. So why did he fight it as long as he did? He may hate your guts, but scuttlebutt is he always has his eye on promotion.”

Amado frowned thoughtfully. “Good point, it doesn’t really fit, does it?” he mused. “Not enough to make a formal suggestion to Internal Affairs but I’ll pass the word to a few people, have them keep an eye on things.” He glanced up and grimaced at the sound of a distant siren. He hadn’t demanded that the reinforcements come in quietly, and Sergeant Macky hadn’t taken the initiative to call for it himself. “Something to think about later.”

/\

Sergeant Macky sighed as he leaned back in his seat. He hadn’t done his career any good, but he didn’t _think_ he’d pushed things so far that he no longer had one. Everyone knew he and Sergeant Amado didn’t get along, so he could plead a momentary lapse of judgment and the captain would probably be satisfied with an official reprimand and making sure he didn’t deal with Sergeant Amado in the future even for his assigned duties. Macky just hoped that Nakamura agreed that he’d bought as much time as he could — while Macky appreciated the bank account he was building for his retirement, the Oyabun of the Hudson City branch of the Sawakiri-gumi was _not_ a forgiving man.

/oOo\

Ryu looked down at the debris piled up underneath where he stood at the edge of the massive hole in the second story floor, ignoring the cold night air coming through the wide gap where several rooms had been. Finally, he shrugged with a sigh. It hadn’t been _that_ much of a fight, much less a true test of his limits, but it had been fun while it lasted. And he did have to admit — to himself if no one else — that Chrysanthemum had been faster than he was. If she had been a true martial artist or had her mystical toys with her, the fight might have turned out very differently. But she _hadn’t_ had them with her and she _wasn’t_ a true martial artist, and that meant all her speed was useless without the ki-enhanced strength to take advantage of it. _Or the toughness to take a real hit, or the endurance to outlast her opponents,_ he thought. _Still, she was no poseur. She certainly knew how to use what she —_

The pile of debris shifted, and his eyes widened as a one side of the pile was pushed to the side, sliding down to the floor. Stepping off the edge of the hole, he dropped to the floor below and stepped around to the side of the slide to stare at Chrysanthemum upright on her knees, hands raised to brace up two large ceiling slabs leaning against each other. For a long moment she stared back then, voice shaking, said the first words he’d heard from her since the ambush: “What do you know? It worked.”

Ryu shook off his shock and laughed, long and hard. Finally getting himself under control, he asked in the same English she had used, “Why the hell _aren’t_ you a true martial artist?”

Chrysanthemum shrugged slightly, then froze as the debris pile above her shifted. “I’ve picked up a bit, but true mastery of your ki takes too much time. I’d rather use it to help people. Could you step out of the way?”

For a moment, Ryu considered doing just that — the fight _had_ been fun, after all, Chrysanthemum had proven to be an unexpectedly inventive and resilient fighter, more of a challenge than he had expected. _I may have to rethink my views on those using shortcuts,_ he thought, _sort out the pretenders and gloryhounds from those that simply have other things more important to them._ But that was for later, and he shook his head. “As much fun as that would be, I’m afraid I’m being paid for a job right now, and you’re trespassing,” he said regretfully, drawing back a fist. “Nothing personal.”

“It will be if you throw that punch,” a new male voice said.

Ryu looked up to find a new figure crouched at the edge of the hole, a muscular raven-haired boy close to his own age dressed in a tight black and dark blue costume, an open vee in the front, a feather pattern along the shoulders, slightly puffed sleeves. He wore a black mask that covered his head except for his lower face and the top of his head, but Ryu felt a fresh upsurge of hope. He didn’t know how feathers might fit with DarkAngel’s motif, but maybe _this_ was the one, was Ranma.... “So come down here and do something about it,” he suggested, stepping back and to the side to give the newcomer room.


	22. Mid-Game

“It will be if you throw that punch,” Cherub said to the Japanese teenager on the floor below. The raven-haired boy looked to be about his own age, and his muscle shirt revealed the bulkier musculature of a power fighter — a skilled one, though, if the way he moved and the massive destruction of the mansion wing meant anything.

The boy looked up toward him, and a broad, eager smile spread across his face as he dropped his fist. “So come down here and do something about it,” he said, stepping back and to the side to give Cherub room.

Cherub stepped off the ragged edge of flooring and dropped down, ready to block and spin if the stranger tried to take advantage of his momentary vulnerability, but the other boy only stepped back again to place himself beyond Cherub’s apparent reach. Cherub took advantage of the moment to glance to the side for a split second, an eyebrow going up at the sight of Chrysanthemum apparently holding up the rubble. {K —} he started, only to catch himself, grimacing. Here the Barstool Prophet had reminded him during his run across the roof to join the fight that Chrysanthemum’s identity needed to be kept secret, and he’d almost blurted it out anyway. {You okay?} he asked instead, in their native Japanese.

{I’m fine, kick his ass,} she snarled back.

Cherub grinned at the other boy. {You got it.}

The boy snorted. {You wish. Unless the Umisenken has some miracle techniques, it won’t be able to overcome the Yamasenken that your father taught mine.}

{The what? Who are you?} Cherub demanded, trying to ignore a sinking feeling in his gut — yet another of his father’s idiocies was rising to haunt him.

{Your father never mentioned visiting the Kumon dojo? Well, I am Kumon Ryu, son of the sensei that Genma taught the Yamasenken to, the style that killed him,} Ryu snarled. {If your father is dead, I will have to be satisfied with facing his son! You will hand over the scroll for the Umisenken to me.}

Cherub shrugged. {Do I look like I’m carryin’ scrolls around on me? Name’s Cherub. If ya want ta talk ta Ranma, she’s watchin’ over of a little girl yer boss’s thugs tried ta kill.}

Ryu stared. {Cherub?} he asked in a shaky voice. {Cherub? Really?} Finally losing control, he burst out laughing, arms across his stomach as he fought to stay on his feet.

Cherub instantly flowed forward, the fist he buried in Ryu’s stomach picking him off his feet and into a wall. He bounced off to meet Cherub’s boot, smashing into his chest and pushing him through the wall he’d just rebounded from. Cherub dove through the hole, and twisted to the side just in time to deflect a solid hit from a thrusting blade-hand that instead scraped along his midriff. _Careful Ranma,_ he thought as he landed awkwardly on his side. He rolled away from the follow-up stomp and up to his feet, smirking at the way Ryu was still slightly bent over. He said, {And doesn’t the name come in handy distracting whoever you’re fightin’? Get them ta not take ya seriously?}

He was just about to charge at the other boy, when he remembered the _other_ bit of advice he’d gotten during his trip across the roof. “ _Whoever Chrysanthemum is fighting, make sure she’s all right then keep him busy if you can’t take him down fast._ ” _Right, busy,_ he thought, and started to circle instead of closing the distance. It was hard — what he _really_ wanted to do was put down his enemy and get back to searching for Deborah Manning. But DarkAngel was handling the search, and from the first exchange he couldn’t be sure of a quick knockout while he _could_ be sure trying for it would risk being the one to go down, instead — one more reason for a proper search for the kidnapped woman to _not_ be carried out. So, a delaying action it was.

Ryu glowered at the circling Cherub as he turned in place, then crossed his arms as Cherub completed the first round. He swept them apart, and Cherub gaped as two faint, shimmering _somethings_ flashed out, crossing over his head and slashing up into the wall and ceiling behind him. There was a long creaking sound, and then the world seemed to shake as another chunk of the mansion thundered down behind them. {So you don’t get any ideas about running away,} Ryu said with a smirk as a white dust cloud from the collapse swept over them, then charged forward.

/oOo\

DarkAngel dove into the room whose door she’d just kicked in, rolling across the floor and back to her feet, head whipping around as she did — nothing. _Damn! Now what?_ she thought as she took a second, closer look. Still nothing: nothing in the bathroom, the space under the unmade bed blocked by blankets, no girl hiding in the wardrobe, the suite was empty except for a plain metal box that definitely didn’t fit the room’s décor but had held several guns, probably until the alarm had gone out.

_Okay, so looking for Deborah didn’t pan out, now what? Think, think, think!_ This was why she positively _hated_ diving into a situation without decent intelligence. _No choice, as soon as they brought Deborah here they could have smuggled her out and we wouldn’t have been able to track her._ Still, however necessary it had been, that didn’t change the dead end she’d ended up in.

_So, I could just randomly search and hope I find her, but with the racket we’re making Sergeant Amado is going to be leading a charge into the mansion at any time, and — right, the rats are going to be deserting the ship, and if they haven’t already killed Deborah they may be taking her with them. Assuming she hasn’t already escaped._ She stepped to the window and scanned the brightly-lit lawn (at least directly in back, the lights had gone out at Chrysanthemum’s end of the mansion), but saw nothing but the snow-covered landscape and trees out to the wall. She whispered, “B.P., to make it official, has Bluejay seen anyone escaping?”

After a pause, B.P. replied, “ _No, nothing._ ”

“Chrysanthemum?”

“ _Don’t know, yet._ ”

“The Answer?”

“ _Stalled and falling back to avoid being mouse trapped._ ”

“Cherub?”

“ _Don’t know. Whatever’s going on with him and Chrysanthemum, I can’t understand a word anyone’s saying.”_

DarkAngel grimaced. “Damn.” Why didn’t she think to ask for a direct link to Ranma ... Cherub ... when she’d had his costume designed? _Because I was expecting to keep him close enough that I could keep an eye on him. Idiot! You’d think by now I’d know that in this kind of mess Murphy rules. Looks like we’re going to need an upgrade before he goes out again._ Still, it wasn’t entirely her fault. One problem with being a solitary vigilante in a city of solitary vigilantes was that she didn’t exactly have anyone she could turn to for advice now that she had a sidekick — no, a partner, if an inexperienced one. She shook her head. That was later, she had more important things to focus on right now.

Still whispering, she continued, “Have the Answer pull out and circle the mansion, see if he can notice anything through the ground floor windows or if anyone’s hiding back there that Bluejay might have missed, then leave by the back wall. If she gets free, have Chrysanthemum do the same in the opposite direction. I’m going up over the top and down into the house through the garage, I suspect the rats might be deserting the sinking ship that way. If I don’t find anyone I’ll join Bluejay on the roof, we’ll head out when the police have things well in hand.”

“ _Sounds good, out._ ”

As the link went dead, DarkAngel unlatched the window and slid it open, pulled out a halo grenade and her grappling swingline, bounced up to the window sill, and a moment later was crossing the roof toward the garage. She was just in time to see another chunk of the far end of the mansion noisily collapse.

/oOo\

Staring at the cocked fist of a teenager capable of punching holes in walls, waiting for it to smash into her face while she was unable to move without being buried under a pile of rubble hadn’t been the worst moment of her superhero career, not by a long shot. No, _that_ honor was reserved for the time a too-stupid-to-live first-time supervillain had somehow “acquired” one of Godzilla’s offspring, and tried to use it to blackmail Tokyo — “too stupid to live” had been an accurate description of the idiot’s fate, but the fight had rolled over an orphanage that hadn’t had enough forewarning to evacuate before they were able to put down the beast.

Still, the sound of Cherub’s voice had been very welcome, indeed.

Then Ryu stepped back out of sight, and a moment later Cherub thudded down next to her. He glanced at her for a split second. {K —} he started, caught himself, tried again. {You okay?}

{I’m fine, kick his ass,} she snarled.

{You got it.}

The two boys started talking to each other, but Chrysanthemum ignored them as she studied the debris she was holding above her, tented in a ‘V’. If she had the room, she thought if she pulled away with _this_ hand first, dove _that_ way ... she carefully shifted so that she was off her knees, braced up on her toes.... and Cherub charged forward, out of sight. Chrysanthemum instantly dropped one hand, pushed up with the other as she sprang forward out of the trap she’d been buried in, tucked in a shoulder to roll over and up to her feet then spun around and pranced back almost to the wall as the pile she’d been buried under finished its collapse, spilling across the floor.

She twisted around, just in time to grin as Cherub kicked Ryu through an interior wall before following the other boy through the new hole. Relaxing — almost slumping — Chrysanthemum chuckled as she shook her head. She thought, _I swear, I am_ never _doing this again!_ _Not without the rest of the team to back me up. We’re making it work, but the risk!_ She sighed as she straightened. Who was she kidding? If the same circumstances came up again, she’d do it all over again, exactly the same. Stupid hero complex was going to get her killed —

She yelped, crouching and covering her head as Ryu’s now all-too-familiar cutting attacks exploded through the interior wall and carved deep gashes in the ceiling, showering her with fresh pieces of wood and plaster, then looked up at the ominous creaking sound coming from above her. She threw herself toward the outer wall even as the ceiling came thundering down toward her. Her arms crossed in front of her face, she smashed through a remarkably unbroken window, shooting out of the mansion in an explosion of glass as a good-sized section of the second-floor walls and ceiling came thundering down into what was left of the room she’d just occupied. She rose to her feet as dust billowed out of the window she’d just exited. “I do not _believe_ this!” she shouted. How was she supposed to —

B.P.’s voice sounded in her ear. “ _Chrysanthemum, are you all right?_ ”

“I’m fine, what about Cherub?”

“ _He hasn’t said, at least in a language I can understand, but from the sound of it he’s still putting up a hell of a fight. Listen, DarkAngel thinks the police should be here any minute, she wants you to leave Cherub to his playmate. Circle the outside of the mansion checking the ground floor windows. If you don’t find anything link up with the Answer in the back and head out over the back wall._ ”

Chrysanthemum asked, “Will Cherub be all right? He isn’t exactly experienced at this.”

“ _He should be,_ ” B.P. replied, “ _he’s the best fighter here, and knows to buy time until the cops show then bug out._ ”

“Okaaay,” Chrysanthemum said doubtfully. What she’d heard of Ranma didn’t sound like someone that would run away in the middle of a fight, but maybe he’d matured some since this whole mess had started? She began her walk along the outside wall, feet crunching in the snow, ready to dodge at an instant if any of the rooms whose windows she was peer through had gunmen instead of a damsel in distress.

/oOo\

Deborah listened, intent for the least hint of sound to indicate that whoever had kicked in the bedroom door was still in the suite. Nothing — at least nothing close, though someone was occasionally making a hell of a racket elsewhere. She shivered — the room was getting colder, did whoever was in her room open the window?

Still silent. Her shivering increased; she hadn’t wrapped herself in a blanket before folding herself into the linen cabinet — she’d thought that keeping her freedom of movement was more important than covering her nakedness and getting comfortable — and the cold was rapidly sinking in. And she was running out of time. And she was now realizing one major problem with her little hiding place — the way the linen cabinet’s two doors were hinged at the ends and swung outward meant she couldn’t see into the room without throwing open the one in front of her face.

Finally gathering her courage, she thrust open both doors and rolled out into the room, rising up onto her knees and swinging her pistol around to cover the room — empty. She slumped in relief, then shivered ... yes, the window was open. So was the door, it was causing a draft. She stepped to the window and again looked out across the brightly-lit snowscape, before she once again reluctantly rejected the possibility of a run for the wall. It was just too open.

_So, girl, if you aren’t going out that way, which way are you going? You can’t stay here._ Not that the thought wasn’t tempting, she could close the window, grab one of the blankets she’d stashed under the bed to wrap up in, and _maybe_ she’d still be able to fit back in her cubbyhole, wait for the police that were bound to investigate the racket — _That’s it, the police! If they come in at all, they’re going to be coming through the front ... and if they don’t, that’s where the garage is_. And when her ‘master’ brought her in, she’d seen where the various vehicles’ keys were hung.

_Okay, we have a plan ... sort of._ Remembering the police shows she’d seen, Deborah lifted her pistol up by her cheek with its muzzle pointed at the ceiling, and sidled up to the wall by the open door before whipping around the doorframe, gun dropping to point straight ahead ... only to have her finger brush the trigger. With a thunderous roar the gun fired, sending a bullet down the fortunately empty hallway as its recoil bounced it up and back to smash into her face. She stumbled back, pinwheels of light flashing across her vision, then fell on her bare butt.

When her vision finally cleared, she looked around, then scrabbled for the gun she couldn’t remember dropping. _Right, keep your finger_ away _from the trigger._ She stood up, gun in one hand and the other hand pressed against her throbbing face, and wobbled her way down the hall toward where she _thought_ the cross-intersection leading toward the front of the mansion would be.

/oOo\

Sergeant Amado, crouched by his car, winced as another crash reverberated out of the small walled mansion estate, then looked down the street as another police car pulled up. “We have enough for backup, so where’s SWAT?” he said into his car radio’s mouthpiece.

“ _SWAT? What SWAT?_ ” Sergeant Macky replied. “ _You didn’t ask for the SWAT team._ ”

“WHAT!?” Amado fought for control — if he told Macky what he _really_ thought of him it was certain to be played back during his next performance review, not to mention get in the way of seeing to it that this motherless bastard was properly investigated. Taking a deep breath, he finally said, “And why did you think I needed to ask for them? They are standard for this type of situation.”

“ _What type of situation? You never said._ ”

_Okay, that definitely stepped over the line — one formal report to Internal Affairs, coming up._ “Are you a sergeant, or a patrolman?” Amado demanded. “We’ll consider your lack of imagination later. Right now, send them down.”

“ _You got it, and ... order sent, they should be on their way in a few minutes._ ”

From beside him, his partner shook his head. “Sounds like we’re going to be cleaning out another department.”

“Yeah, we will,” Amado growled. “But that’s for later. Pass the word, we aren’t waiting for SWAT, not for the outside grounds. We’ll go through the gates, spread out around the mansion, as much as our manpower allows without anyone getting out of sight of everyone else. Make sure they know that if anyone hears gunshots, they are _not_ to respond without at least one person for backup, and only if doing so won’t leave someone else hanging out alone. We’ll wait for the SWAT boys and girl before actually going in.”

/oOo\

In the security center, Nakamura sighed as yet another series of security cameras went blank. When the Oyabun had told his personal bodyguard that property damage didn’t concern him, he hadn’t understood just how ... _enthusiastically_ ... Ryu would take him up on it. Not only was the mansion going to be useless as the Hudson City headquarters for the Sawakiri-gumi, it wasn’t even going to be saleable at the value of just the land — they’d have to discount for the cost of demolishing the rest of the mansion and clearing away the rubble. _Well, I_ did _want a bodyguard that could handle the lunatics that haunt this city_ , he thought wryly (though careful to keep his face expressionless). _I got just that, and everything that goes with it. And I can’t even take him to task for letting his apparent vendetta with Saotome get out of hand, he was tearing up the mansion_ before _Saotome arrived._

Then _all_ of the banks of video screens flickered and went dark. Nakamura glanced over at his chief of security. {Tanaka?}

Tanaka had hurried over to one computer console, talking hurriedly with its occupant. Straightening, he turned to his superior. {It appears Kumon-san somehow cut the power to our server that handles the cameras,} he reported. {How he didn’t —}

The computer screens at all the stations circling the room went blank.

{Never mind,} Tanaka finished, {he did.}

Nakamura suppressed a sigh. {And the police gathering outside our gates?}

Tanaka looked over at one of his subordinates, seated at a now-blank screen. {Imai?} he asked.

Imai replied, {They were still outside the gates, but I was about to report that they were just beginning to come out from behind their cars when the video feed went dead.}

Now Nakamura _did_ sigh, ever so slightly. {Is our communications with the rest of our people also down?}

At a nod from another subordinate, Tanaka said, {Yes, sir.}

{Very well, send men to notify our people to avoid the so-called ‘heroes’ until they leave — which shouldn’t be very long. I will go to meet our new guests.} Nakamura glanced over at Morita, his subordinate and former spy in the Miyamiji-kai’s ranks still standing ramrod straight against the wall by the door. {Morita, you will join us. It is best to learn if this is about your woman quickly.}

{Yes, sir,} Morita said, giving a jerky nod, then stepped to the side to fall in behind as Nakamura and his bodyguards left the security center.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter up! I'm thinking two more chapters to put this story to bed, one to finish off the rumble and an epilogue to wrap everything up.


	23. Birthing Pains

Reluctant though he’d be to admit it, Cherub was enjoying himself. He knew he shouldn’t, he was on serious business — a woman’s life, much less freedom, was at risk, and those responsible for his father’s death needed to be brought to justice. He really should be taking this fight as seriously as the situation warranted.

Unfortunately, he just couldn’t. He’d been right to be careful — Ryu was simply too good to risk going for a quick knockout. But that meant that thanks to the need to draw it out Cherub couldn’t play his usual close-in game to feel out his opponent’s capabilities. Instead, he was bouncing around him like a rubber ball, playing the same kind of avoidance game he’d used the first time he’d fought Akane — this simply wasn’t a serious duel.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t play with his enemy in other ways, and that was where the fun came in. Ryu had a _very_ effective ranged attack that Akane didn’t, and once Cherub had learned that the boy was faster than Akane as well and started to keep his distance it was the only thing the bodyguard had that could reach out and touch him. It had quickly become clear that Ryu wasn’t actually trying to kill him, instead trying to injure him with pieces of wall and ceiling the strikes were throwing around. Cherub had taken to trying to guide where the slicing attacks were aimed for maximum infrastructure damage, and darting in for fast taps and slaps whenever he saw an opening — not hard enough to even bruise, not at the speed he was moving. Early on he _had_ tried one Amaguriken-speed hundred-blows attack, but learned that while Ryu wasn’t as tough as Ryoga, he was tough enough that Cherub had almost lost the fight — Ryu had simply soaked up the assault long enough to almost taken his head off. Ryu had been moving a little slower after that, but Cherub wasn’t sure if he was actually injured or faking it to lure him in and wasn’t going to risk finding out.

Besides, he was having too much fun taunting the boy that was apparently his newest rival.

{You call that fast? I know old grannies on canes faster than that!} (A _really_ old granny at least, tough and skilled enough to give him a run for his money, not that he was going to say that.)

Ryu growled, his teeth grinding together, then paused at a sudden thought. He grinned and replied, {I’m faster than your father was. What kind of true martial artist just stands there and lets someone shoot him?}

It took a moment for the meaning of the words to sink in, and then Cherub’s world went red. He never remembered what he shouted as he threw himself across the room. He _did_ remember the smirk on Ryu’s face as he brushed aside his wild punch and buried his fist in his gut. Cherub dropped to the ground, hacking and fighting to keep from throwing up, and felt hands grab onto the back of his costume. The world spun, and then he slammed face first into the wall — and a moment later _through_ the already weakened wall as a boot hammered into his back.

Cherub looked up from the floor to find Ryu standing on the other side of the hole in the wall, eyes wide. {Well, are ya comin’ through, or not?} she demanded, then winced at the high-pitched tone of her voice. She glanced around and sighed — wonderful, a bathroom, and a sink that _had_ been on the side of the wall she’d just come through. Now, though, it was in scattered pieces between her and the hole, the narrow pipes that had fed it bent and spraying water to both sides of her. _Wonderful._

Ryu stepped through the hole, still staring, then began to chuckle. {So Ranma’s watching over a little girl, is she?}

Cherub shrugged. {Yeah,} she said. She shifted around until she stepped into the path of the spouting water that was feeding a spreading steaming puddle. He shrugged to readjust his costume to his sex change. (He was going to have to tell Jason that his design had handled the switches in the field just fine — and see if he could install some kind of hot water mister.) {Water-based magic curse,} he explained, {cold water activates it and hot water reverses it. I tried ta get rid of it and my sister was the result. She’s _really_ unhappy about it.} That was the story he and Stacy had worked out for Social Services, a bit more detailed than what they had given Sergeant Amado.

{Really?} Ryu asked, then kicked the broken cold water pipe, bending it to spray across Cherub, and smirked when she again shifted into the busty redhead.

Cherub rolled her eyes. {Yes, _really_ ,} she said, then grinned before springing over the spouting pipe to kick him in the face, rocking his head back, and grabbed him by arm and shoulder as she landed to spin around and slam him face first into the wall beside the hole. She sprang away as Ryu stumbled back away from the wall, blood dribbling from his nose down over his upper lip. {And I’m even faster in this form, so let’s get back to the dance.}

/oOo\

Sitting on a chair in front of a now-broken makeup mirror, Moira finished tying off the string keeping a towel wrapped around one foot, to match the one tied around her other foot. “Jackie, _now_ can we go?” she asked. While the two kidnapped ‘servants’ had waited to let the mansion’s oversupply of thugs focus on whatever sounded like it was demolishing one wing of the mansion, they had come up with at least _some_ protection against the outside cold. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing and it wasn’t like they had anything else to do while they waited. Though they _had_ switched bedrooms, looking for more towels — good thing, too, since it meant that they hadn’t been in their bedroom when some thugs had come calling.

Seated on the bed, Jackie used a piece of the mirror’s broken glass to cut off the excess ribbon she had used instead of string, then stood and stepped over to the window, searching the snowscape for any guards — still nobody. She said, “I don’t see anyone. It should have been long enough, let’s go.”

She slid the window up as far as it would go, shivering as the cold air washed over her lingerie-covered body, then grabbed the blanket from the bed and she and Moira pushed the screen out to fall to the empty flowerbed below. Swinging one leg over the windowsill, she crouched to slip through the open window and drop down after the screen, then turned to help Moira down before swinging the blanket around her and clutching it as tight as it would go. Not that the blanket helped much when she began running for the back wall as fast as she could through the snow with Moira beside her.

Behind her, she heard the first shouts, male voices yelling something she couldn’t make out over her gasping breath and the blood pounding in her temples. Neither did she recognize the dull thunder of silenced pistols being fired behind her. Then a line of fire slashed through an upper leg, and she shrieked as she collapsed forward onto the spray of her blood across the snow.

“Jackie!” Moira shouted, whirling at the shout. She raced back the few steps needed to drop beside her friend.

Jackie sat up, her bloodstained hands clutching at her leg. She looked back toward the mansion. Yes, there were two men running through the snow toward them, pistols in hand. She twisted toward her friend, and gasped out, “Moira, get out of here, get over the wall. Call the police, tell them I’m here.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Moira insisted. “Come on, let’s go!” She grabbed her friend under her arms, trying to lift her up.

Then a male voice said, “Yes, let us go back to the house.”

The two girls looked up to find the two men looming over them. To Jackie the muzzles of the two pistols pointing down at the girls seemed to expand, as if she were staring into the yawning pits of hell. She began to shake, and not from cold.

/\

Since Bluejay had opened DarkAngel and Cherub’s window into the mansion and taken her position patrolling along roof, she had found herself both nerve-thrummingly tense and increasingly bored. It wasn’t an unfamiliar situation, it happened fairly regularly on stakeouts outside the thief’s targets while she waited for residents to go to sleep or leave their homes — even when she’d penetrated those targets, had hacked their computers and was uploading her handy viruses and could only wait in absolute silence until they were done.

Of course, _this_ wait had had its moments of excitement, what with pieces of one wing of the mansion collapsing in on itself (fortunately not while she’d been on top of it, and it _had_ decreased her own patrol area). B.P. had said that she didn’t need to worry about it, though, that it was Ranma’s dance partner and that that fight was unlikely to migrate much beyond its current location. But beyond that, there’d been nothing. She wished she was able to listen in on everyone else’s coms, but that would mean everyone would be listening to everyone else as well and that could get distracting in possibly lethal circumstances so she could understand why she couldn’t.

Still, on her end of the operation nothing was happening, and the new sensation of being concerned for the others involved — _having_ anyone else involved, actually — was making it hard to concentrate.

Then she heard the low claps of silencer-deadened gunshots, and suddenly concentrating was no trouble at all.

Up till now she had been keeping a low profile, scuttling along the roof to avoid skylining herself as she made her circuit watching for runners. Not that she’d been worried about anyone on the mansion grounds seeing her, not with the lights shining down — they were below her along the edge of the roof and anyone looking up would be blinded — but the roof _was_ visible from over the wall and who knew who might be watching?  But now she took to the air, eyes scanning the brightly lit ground ... there! Two girls crouched in the snow, one clutching her leg. Two men approached them, guns pointed at the girls.

 _I_ really _shouldn’t have let Stacy talk me out of reinstalling my suit’s weapons_ , Bluejay thought half-whimsically, half-despairingly. _This is going to_ hurt _!_

She was right.

She dove downward with wings outstretched to cut down on the acceleration at least a little, and leveled off six feet off the ground a dozen yards behind the two men advancing on the girls. The distance between her and her targets vanished almost instantaneously, and she screamed at the sensation of crunching bones in her shoulder and pain lancing up her opposite arm as she smashed into the men from behind. Both men were flung forward, their guns firing reflexively as their limp bodies bowled over the girls, and Bluejay screamed again as the impact sent her careening out of control, bouncing and rolling across the ground. The relentless white-hot pain hammered her under before her body finally rolled to a stop face up, white-clad arms flung wide to spread her light-blue wings open on the snow.

/\

Chrysanthemum stiffened where she was peeking through another first-story window into another dark, empty room as loud thudding barks echoed across the estate — those were silenced guns! Springing up from her crouch, she raced for the corner to the back of the mansion as fast as the snow allowed. She even tried some flips to see if they would allow her to move faster before abandoning them because of how difficult they made keeping track of what was happening around her.

Then she was around the corner and felt her heart sink at the sight of a pair of girls out in the middle of the snow, one clutching at her leg, and the two men holding pistols approaching them — if the men were paying even a modicum of attention to what was happening around them there was no way she was going to be able to get close enough to catch them by surprise. It was made for a hostage situation, and there was nothing she was going to be able to do to stop it. _Please, let them be completely oblivious idiots._

Even as she redoubled her hopeless charge, she caught a hint of motion out of the corner of her eye. She glanced toward the mansion, and froze as she saw Bluejay come out of her dive to streak across the snow and slam into the two men from behind. The thief’s shriek of agony combined with the boneless finality of the men’s bodies as they were knocked over their prospective victims to freeze Chrysanthemum in place for a long moment as she tracked Bluejay’s uncontrolled tumble across the snow, unable to believe that the hedonist had done what she’d just seen. Hadn’t Bluejay realized what that was going to _do_ to her?

Then another hint of motion drew Chrysanthemum’s attention to the Answer running toward them from the other side of the mansion, and she shook herself free of her paralysis. _Back to work, girl,_ she told herself, and resumed her run forward.

Seconds later she was beside the men and the girls. The girls seemed in no immediate danger so she checked the men first, but neither was going to be a threat ever again, not with those blank open eyes and heads cocked at the wrong angles. Still, Chrysanthemum searched around for the guns and threw them toward the estate wall before dropping to a knee beside the two lingerie-clad girls. From what she could see the redhead was all right, if a bit shocky and wild-eyed and with a trickle of blood from a shallow groove across one arm, but the also-shocky blonde she was clutching at had blood welling up through the fingers of her hands clamped onto her upper thigh.

Chrysanthemum ordered, “Let me see.” When the blonde didn’t respond, she gently pried at her hands. “I need to see how badly you were hit, let me see,” she repeated as the Answer joined them.

Intelligence seeped back into the blonde’s glazed eyes, and she drew a shuddering breath and let go of her leg. Fresh blood welled up, but Chrysanthemum gusted out a sigh of relief — the shot was a clean in-and-out, with no major arteries hit. The girl would be fine, just some unusual scars (for civilians, at least).

“Here.” Chrysanthemum looked up, then accepted the pressure bandage and two plastic-packaged dressings the Answer had pulled from somewhere in his black trench coat. “Bluejay?” he asked as he helped her wrap the girl’s wound.

“Did you see me check her?” Chrysanthemum responded curtly. “Enemies and civilians first is the rule — possible threats and those we’re supposed to protect — then our own.” She smiled reassuringly down at the girls. “But the wound is a clean shot. You two should be okay, if a little cold until the police get here. Wait here.”

She and the Answer rose to their feet and walked over to kneel beside the body of their ally lying face up on the snow with winged arms widespread — a still-living body, Chrysanthemum was relieved to see from her rising and falling chest. Chrysanthemum shifted Bluejay’s goggles up onto her forehead, then pulled out one of the few ofuda she had brought with her and placed it between the thief’s eyes. She pulled out a small penknife, pulled off one of her gloves, and pricked a finger to smear a drop of blood on the scrap of paper, then rose and stepped back as a green haze seeped out of the ofuda and spread slowly down Bluejay’s body. The green shifted to bright red over one shoulder and a somewhat lighter red around the opposite upper arm, there were a few lighter patches of red along ribs and thigh and legs, but Chrysanthemum sagged with relief when none of the red showed around head or neck.

“What does that mean?”

Chrysanthemum started in surprise at the question, and turned to find the two girls behind her, wrapped in blankets they must have brought with them and lost before in the excitement, the redhead helping the blonde hobble along. The redhead’s breathing was shaky, but the blonde seemed unnaturally calm.

“It means she’s pretty badly beaten up, but she should be all right,” Chrysanthemum said. “Her shoulder is mangled and her arm is broken, but there is no damage to her head or neck. She can be moved safely. Then a distant shout drew everyone’s attention back toward the mansion, to see new uniformed figures coming into sight around the corner — the police had finally arrived. “And a good thing, too,” she continued with a sigh. “Come on, Answer, let’s see if we can get her out of here before they catch up — jail would be a poor reward for what she’s done.”

“She’s wanted?” The blonde didn’t wait for an answer, pulling her blanket off and handing it to Chrysanthemum. “Moira, give them your blanket, too, they can wrap her up, help with the shock and make it easier to move her. I’m sure the cops will have replacements for us.” As Moira reluctantly obeyed, she continued, “Now let’s go greet our heroic boys in blue. How well can you fake hysterics?”

Moira laughed, her voice ragged — the girl was already on the edge and holding on with bleeding fingernails. “Jacky, what makes you think I’m going to have to _fake_ anything?” she demanded. “After tonight I _deserve_ a breakdown and I am damn well going to have one!”

“Well, wait until you can share it with the cops,” Jacky replied. She turned back to the vigilantes. “When she wakes up tell her we’ll never forget what she did for us, will you?”

“I will,” Chrysanthemum promised.

“Thank you,” Jacky said with a grateful smile, then shivered violently at the touch of a cold breeze. She turned and started hobbling toward the approaching policemen with the help of her now also violently shivering friend.

Chrysanthemum turned back to Bluejay to find that the Answer had pulled the belt off his trench coat. Chrysanthemum’s diagnostic magic had faded away, and he’d somehow folded up Bluejay’s wings and was using the belt to tie her arms against her body. “We can get her over the wall, but what then?” Chrysanthemum asked.

“ _I’ve already sent a car,_ ” B.P. said through their earbud. “ _Get her over the wall and a few blocks away, and you’ll be home free._ ”

“Good job, B.P.,” the Answer said, then grinned at Chrysanthemum. “I’ll carry Bluejay, you take care of anyone that gets in our way. Just remember to be gentle with any police that try to stop us, they’re on our side.”

Chrysanthemum briefly considered what would happen if they _didn’t_ get away and it became public knowledge that one of Japan’s premier superheroes had illegally entered the United States and attacked law enforcement personnel. When she shivered it wasn’t from cold. _So let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that_ , she thought, and nodded. “Right, so let’s get out of here.”


	24. Wild Rebel Rose

DarkAngel crouched on her heels, leaning against the hallway wall beside the door to the garage. She had made it across the roof and into the mansion through the doors The Answer had kicked open just before B.P. had reported that the police were entering the mansion grounds. For a moment she had been worried that she was going to have to race through the mansion to exit the back as the police entered the front — and wouldn’t _that_ have been the perfect farce to cap the night?

But the police had simply spread out around the mansion, so she made a quick reconnaissance of the hallways at the front of the mansion while spreading the last of the off-world tech she had brought — tiny limited-life self-destructive sensors she tossed up to the ceilings that would pick up motion and transmit video of whatever triggered them to a set of goggles she was now wearing over her black half-mask and blond wig. Now all she could do was wait until either her prey showed up or the police decided to enter, and in the meantime listen to B.P.’s reports on what was going on with the others. Not that _that_ was exactly relaxing — whomever Cherub was fighting was proving a _lot_ more powerful than she’d expected for a Hudson City villain, and the situation with Bluejay had had her heart in her throat until B.P. reported Chrysanthemum’s diagnosis that her sort-of-friend/enemy was going to be all right.

DarkAngel was wondering if she and Bluejay were still going to _be_ friends after this, when her goggles lightly vibrated to indicate a hit. She immediately accepted the footage, and her heart sank at the sight of a group walking down a hallway: two obvious bodyguards in the lead, the oyabun of the Sawakiri-gumi and his chief of security side by side, the man that had brought Deborah to the mansion from the headquarters of the Miyamiji-kai trailing behind them, and two more obvious bodyguards bringing up the rear — and no Deborah.

 _Maybe she got away from them, and they’re cutting their losses_ , she thought, firmly ignoring the possibility that they had simply decided that she’d be dead weight and killed her.

Then DarkAngel frowned as they turned into a new corridor halfway down the one they’d been walking down, and a signal from a new video feed came in — that new corridor didn’t lead to the garage. It _was,_ however, the way to the front entrance. _The oyabun knows the police are here, he must be trying a bluff, to see if he can keep them out of the mansion_. She smiled viciously at the thought. With the two girls that Bluejay almost killed herself saving, all the oyabun was doing was delivering himself and Deborah’s kidnapper into the hands of the police. No, whatever happened those men were in for a _very_ uncomfortable future. Now if only Deborah was alive to enjoy it....

Then a new signal came in. She opened up the new feed, and stiffened at the sight of the blond figure of Deborah Manning, naked, face bruised and bloody, a pistol in her hand hanging at her side — and entering the corridor the oyabun’s group had just left.

DarkAngel was instantly upright and racing down the hallway, ripping the goggles off her head and stashing them in her belt pouch as she ran. She couldn’t get around to Deborah from the rear, not before the girl caught up with the yakuza, but she _could_ get in front of both groups. Hopefully she could take the thugs down before they knew Deborah was behind them, or at least provide a distraction and alert Deborah that they were there. Either way, she had to _move_.

/\

Deborah was lost. The hallways she’d walked through were luxurious, those lit well enough at night that she was able to tell, but had a level of sameness that made it impossible for her to recognize anything from her single pass-through the previous day. She wasn’t helped by the way the layout would have done justice to the Minotaur’s maze. Still, she _thought_ she hadn’t gotten turned around. If she wasn’t aimed straight for the garage she should at least be headed somewhere toward the front entrance.

Then she came up to another corridor joining the one she was in, and paused just as she was about to enter it when she heard voices. Or rather, a strange woman’s voice: “Going somewhere?”

“Not that it should be any concern of a trespasser in my house, but yes — I intend to greet my newest guests.”

Deborah stiffened. _That_ was the voice of the older man that had greeted her raping, abusive, self-styled ‘master’ when they’d arrived. And if _he_ was here, perhaps her ‘master’ was as well!

“You mean the police? Yes, I imagine they’ll be happy to see you. They’re going to have some questions about the two girls your thugs tried to kill out back.”

Deborah crept up to the corner and peeked around, and ... yes! The rapist was there, his back to her, two other men pushing past him toward whatever woman had intercepted them. She pulled back out of sight, bracing herself against the wall as she found herself gasping, shaking with rage. She heard more discussion, but couldn’t understand it over the blood thundering in her ears. _Okay, girl, if you’re going to have a chance here you need to_ control _yourself!_

She slowly fought down the shaking in her hands until the pistol in her hands was steady, sucked in a deep breath, and stepped around the corner. She lifted the pistol in both hands to point it straight at her rapist’s back. “Going somewhere without your meek and subservient slave, _master?_ ”

Morita whirled around to face her even as the sound of cries and thuds broke out behind him. He blanched, freezing at the sight of the gun in her hand aimed straight at him. “Deborah!”

“Wow, you actually used my name, instead of ‘bitch’ or ‘slut’! Amazing what a little firepower pointed your way does for your memory,” Deborah mocked.

A hint of motion beyond Morita caught her eye, and her gaze flicked over for a moment to see that the older man just beyond him had also turned to silently watch her. She discounted him — unarmed and so unimportant — and refocused on Morita. Slipping her finger inside the trigger guard, she started to squeeze, only to pause as a thought struck her — the old man that had known what Morita had done to her and disapproved, and done nothing. “You know, Morita, you’re really good at making life miserable for people. Why don’t we see how much you enjoy the reverse.” Shifting her aim slightly, she squeezed the trigger.

/\

DarkAngel paused got a few seconds fighting her breath under control — the run to get into position had been short but hard — pulled out a halo grenade and a halo boomerang, then stepped around the hallway corner and ... yes! The oyabun was still walking toward her, and his escorts were all still with him. _So, let’s let Deborah know we’re here._

She leaned nonchalantly against the wall and asked, “Going somewhere?” ( _Apparently_ nonchalantly — the style Genma had taught her emphasized hiding her readiness to respond. That had played a major role in her early success, before her rep outweighed her cuteness.)

At the sight of her, the yakuza slammed to a stop. After a moment the oyabun responded, “Not that it should be any concern of a trespasser in my house, but yes — I intend to greet my newest guests.”

“Ah.” DarkAngel tapped at a lip. “You mean the police? Yes, I imagine they’ll be happy to see you. They’re going to have some questions about the two girls your thugs tried to kill out back.” She grinned as the shot went home — they weren’t going to be able to talk their way out of this one.

Later DarkAngel couldn’t remember the next few steps in their little verbal duel, she was too busy trying to watch the hallway behind them without appearing to watch the hallway behind them, looking for any hint of Deborah Manning. She was helped by the way the bodyguards in the back pushed forward to join the ones in the front, the chief of security behind them, shifting forward enough that he could step in front of the oyabun at a moment’s notice. And there beyond them she saw the young woman peek around the corner and then pull back out of sight. Wonderful! Deborah had been warned, and if she’d been listening she’d know the police were onsite, all she needed to do was find a place to hide until —

The naked blonde stepped back into sight, pistol lifting in a two-handed grip to point at her kidnapper. “Going somewhere without your meek and subservient bedwarmer, _master?_ ”

 _Oh, shit!!!_ DarkAngel instantly went from holding up the wall to throwing herself toward the yakuza. The thrown halo grenade bounced off the wall beside one of the two in the front and went off between him and the man behind him. Both were instantly entangled in a mass of whipping ribbons as her halo boomerang struck the forehead of the other man in the front rank, rocking his head back and sending him stumbling into the man behind him.

Then she was in the middle, grabbing the second-ranker that was knocked off-balance and whirling to slam him into the wall, twisted around and kicked the chief of security in the stomach hard enough to knock him off his feet as a back-swinging elbow slammed her second target’s head into the wall again. As that man collapsed she stepped out of the way of the two ribbon-entangled men when they tried to knock her over, giving them an added assist to slam head first into the wall. They collapsed on top of her second target, she turned to kick the man she’d hit with her boomerang in the head just as he was rising to his knees, then charged toward the again standing but still bent over chief of security. Two quick blows and he dropped — and the hallway thundered as beyond them blood and flesh exploded from the oyabun’s upper back and a strike against the impact weave of her costume half-turned her around.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself back around even as another shot roared out. She found Deborah staggering backward with gun in her hands dropping back to level, bleeding from a fresh contusion on her forehead. In front of her, her kidnapper was dropping to his knees beside the body of the oyabun, whose lifeless eyes were staring unblinking at the ceiling. He looked up at the girl he had abused, and asked, “Why?”

Deborah smiled coldly as she stared down at him, her gun dropping to hang limply by her side. “You killed my boyfriend, made my life hell, did your best to break me. Now let’s see how much your life is worth after your _friends_ find out their oyabun was killed by your plaything.”

DrkAngel frantically looked Deborah over, and slumped slightly in relief when she failed to find any other fresh wounds, bullet-inflicted or otherwise. She looked around to find another pistol lying on the floor next to Deborah’s kidnapper, a ribbon of smoke rising from the muzzle — it must have gone off when he dropped it. She looked around again at the bodies she’d strewn about the hallway. The three of them were the only ones still conscious — _that_ was something, at least. Sighing, she stepped around the man kneeling on the floor to slowly approach the naked girl. “Deborah, give me the gun,” she said in as gentle a voice as she could manage.

Deborah pulled her gaze up from her abuser to stare almost uncomprehendingly at the vigilante. She was turning pale, what she’d just done must have been catching up with her.

“Give me the gun,” DarkAngel repeated. “The police are outside waiting for you.”

Tears ran down Deborah’s cheeks as she started to shake. DarkAngel took a chance and reached out to take the pistol from her hand, meeting only minimal resistance. She placed it in her belt pouch, then put an arm around Deborah’s shoulder and gently pushed her into motion, guiding her through the unconscious men and down the hallway. “I know the cop in charge,” she said as they turned the corner into yet _another_ hallway. “He’s a good man, he’ll get you a blanket, take care of you, see to it that you get home.”

“Home? But ... but I killed ...”

DarkAngel stopped, and turned the still-crying young woman to face her. “Yes, you did. But you, I, and that ... that ... that _pig_ are the only ones that know that. I have the gun so if you keep quiet the police won’t be able to link you to the shooting. They certainly aren’t going to take _his_ word for it.” The thunder of a fresh gunshot echoed down the hall, and DarkAngel smiled grimly. “And I suspect _that_ was said pig making the issue a moot point.”

Deborah stared at DarkAngel, eyes wild, then abruptly broke down into loud sobs as she frantically clutched at the vigilante.

DarkAngel gently returned the embrace, murmuring to her and rubbing her back until the sobs trailed off into hiccups. Finally, she reluctantly broke the embrace. “Come on, the police are waiting for you,” she said, then paused. “Oh, yes, almost forgot.” She pulled a wet wipe packet out of a pocket on her belt. “Here, wipe off your hands and arms.”

A confused Deborah did as she asked, then again ... then a third time. As DarkAngel put the used wipes and empty packets into her pouch, Deborah ask, “What was that for?”

“Gun oil and gunpowder residue.” DarkAngel put her arm around Deborah’s shoulders again and steered her down the hallway.

A few minutes later she watched through a crack in the curtains of a window next to the front entrance as Deborah ran down the steps and through herself into the arms of Sergeant Amado. As another cop hurriedly brought a blanket for the naked woman, DarkAngel turned away. She murmured, “B.P., Deborah’s with the cops and I’m on my way out. Tell Cherub it’s time to go.”

“ _Already done,_ ” B.P. replied.

DarkAngel sighed with relief — her partner was still all right, then, or B.P. would have said something. _Now_ all she had to do was to collect her tools from where she’d left them, then make her way through the mansion to exit out the back. She wondered for a moment if the architect had been part-rabbit — the place was certainly a warren.

/oOo\

Like Bluejay, Cherub had been facing a combination of boredom and rising tension, only for him it wasn’t familiar at all. Usually, spars and fights were over _quickly_ , but this one had been going on and on and on ... Ryu unable to touch him and unwilling to use lethal force, and him able to hit Ryu whenever he tried to attack — but only by moving in and out so fast that he wasn’t able to put any real strength into the blows.

If this had been a _real_ fight, or even a spar, they would have long since acknowledged the impasse and called it a day. Unfortunately, since it was Cherub’s job to keep Ryu occupied he was stuck there while DarkAngel searched the mansion alone. Sure, she had more experience as a vigilante than he did, practically all of it solo. And sure, the gurentai they’d encountered had been practice dummies rather than any real threat. But still, she was _alone_ and searching for Deborah, and he couldn’t shake the growing feeling that he ought to be there for Deborah like he had been the first time and he _wasn’t_ going to be there so long as Ryu was ambulatory.

So of course, he’d come up with a way to change that, and in a few more minutes he’d find out if it —

“ _Cherub, DarkAngel’s found Deborah, and she’s escorting her to the police out front. Time to go._ ”

Cherub went lightheaded as relief washed through him — and almost died from his distraction as he _almost_ failed to twist out of the way of Ryu’s latest attack, the edge of vacuum blade slashing through his costume and leaving a shallow cut across his chest. _Pay attention, Ranma,_ he berated himself. _Just because Ryu isn’t tryin’ ta kill you doesn’t mean he won’t if ya zig when he expects ya to zag._

“I’ll be out in a few minutes,” he murmured back softly, and dropped almost flat to the floor on his hands and toes to avoid the follow-up strike before rolling to the side. _Okay, let’s see if this works._

/\

Ryu snarled as he sent another vacuum blade ripping across their current room towards his opponent, ignoring the relief washing through him that his apparent near miss _was_ in fact a miss. He was finding his fight with Cherub (snicker) _extremely_ frustrating. Really, between his inability to solidly connect against his opponent and Cherub’s (snicker) inability to get through his defenses with enough strength to do anything but sting without leaving himself open to a fight-losing counterstrike, the fight had degenerated into a particularly brutal extra-long sparring session.

But he did have to admit that it had been _very_ instructive about the limits of the Yamasenken — in fact, the most productive fight he’d been in since he could remember. The style Genma had taught his father was perfect if he wanted to smash his way into somewhere in a hurry, hit hard and fast without concern for what kind of shape his opponents were left in — or the landscape, for that matter. Yes, the Yamasenken was brutally, destructively lethal. Unfortunately, its usefulness plummeted as soon as concern for the wellbeing of his opponent was added to the equation, and he simply could _not_ kill Cherub (snicker) — with Genma dead, the son was Ryu’s only connection to the Umisenken. True, Cherub (snicker) hadn’t seemed to recognize the name of the style, but it was possible his father had changed the name, or had hidden the scroll somewhere that only his son would know. No, for now at least, Cherub (snicker) was worth _far_ more to Ryu alive than dead. Still, as Ryu had learned, that brought its own problems, the big one being that the Yamasenken was powerful but _slow_ — he’d never realized how slow until he found himself facing an opponent as fast or faster than he was. His style’s vulnerability had been hidden by the lower quality of his previous opponents.

At least he had managed to maneuver Cherub (snicker) into the path of the spouting hot water from the broken sink before they left the bathroom. Now they were moving through that wing of the mansion room by room, with a blithe disregard for whether any particular wall actually had a door in it, their path twisting and turning, doubling back on itself. Cherub (snicker) kept to his tactic of dancing around Ryu, darting in for the occasional tap just to show he could. And he’d stopped the constant string of insults, probably because he’d realized that at this point they were a possibly self-distracting waste of breath.

{Hey, Giggles, I gotta agree that yer techniques are laughable, but I’m kinda surprised that ya find yer lack a’ skill as amusing as I do.}

The insult — and its pinpoint accuracy — took Ryu by surprise, and his mounting frustration exploded. He had just crossed his arms to launch another attack, and he instantly shifted his aim and sent the vacuum blade ripping through the air straight at the pigtailed vigilante. Heart in his mouth, Ryu froze as he watched, desperately hoping — and then Cherub sprang straight over the attack toward him, landed on his hands, flipped straight at him again, and _used his shoulders as the base for another hand spring right over his head!_ Ryu whipped around just in time for Cherub’s booted feet to slam into his chest, knocking him staggering back to the far side of the room. He caught his balance and glared at his opponent ... who was now standing by the room’s door.

Cherub tossed him a jaunty wave. {Gotta go, have fun,} Cherub tossed off, and raced through the door. Ryu was just bracing himself to follow when loud popping and cracking sounds from above penetrated his anger. He looked up just in time to see the ceiling come down, smashing him to the floor. The thundering collapse seemed to go on and on, and when it finally ended Ryu found himself battered and bruised and pinned in place, unable to do much more than twitch in the pitch black. He finally gave up his attempts to free himself and relaxed, and found himself actually smiling slightly in spite of the way he was choking on the dust as he settled back to wait for rescue. _Round one goes to you,_ Ranma _, but we’ll be meeting again. After all, I know where to find you._

/\

Cherub raced though the mansion, running through doorways and leaping through holes he and Ryu — well, mainly Ryu — had left in the mansion’s infrastructure. It turned out his little trap had actually been a _big_ trap, and if he didn’t find a way out _right now_.... And then there was a miraculously unbroken window in front of him, and he threw himself out of the building in an explosion of glass to roll across the snow as behind him an unbelievably big chunk of the mansion wing collapsed onto itself.

A moment later a policeman was pulling him up and away from the building. “Good God, man,” the cop babbled, “are you all right?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Cherub replied as he shook off the helping hands. He stared at the pile of rubble in the abruptly darker night, the lights that had illuminated that side of the lawn having come down with the wing and the lights farther back only lighting up the rising cloud of dust. “A lot better than the other guy,” he added, trying to speak with his usual nonchalance and grateful that the darkness hid his own shock at what he and Ryu had accomplished.

The policeman asked shakily, “There was someone else in there?”

Cherub shrugged. “Yeah, but he’s a tough one. He can take it. Well, now that Deborah’s safe I have to get out of here, good luck.”

“Wait —” But Cherub was gone into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that takes care of the action, I hope it doesn't disappoint. One issue I quickly realized is that unlike a Superman-type story, when you're telling a Batman-type story few, or even any, of the enemies for a particular story arc will match the combat prowess of the good guys. And that means most of the dramatic tension has to come from something other than the combat itself. At any rate, one more chapter to wrap things up and we can put this one to bed.
> 
> The chapter title comes from the country song by Martina McBride. It's far from an exact fit, no child abuse here, but has some overlap. The relevant verse goes:
> 
> I heard the shots  
> I saw you hit the door  
> I snuck in and grabbed that pistol off the floor  
> Don't you worry they won't find it that's for sure


	25. Anatevka

Nabiki sighed with relief as she leaned back in the chair in front of her desktop computer after finishing the latest news online from Hudson City — whatever had gone down overnight, apparently none of the dead included garishly dressed too-old adolescents. Ranma should be fine. _Now if he’ll just remember to_ call _today_ , she grumbled to herself. _If he hasn’t called by the time I get home from school I’m calling him, hang the expense._

Then her reverie was broken by a jaw-breaking yawn, and she grimaced as she glanced at the clock. It was too _damn_ early in the morning, but the worries she refused to show anyone wouldn’t let her sleep. Well, by this time Kasumi should be up and the coffee percolating. Nabiki straightened and was just beginning to shut down her computer when a new email alert popped up. She stiffened when she saw the email’s sender, and opened it up. She quickly realized that she wasn’t going to be going to school that day, after all.

/\

Kasumi looked up from the breakfast preparations as her younger sister shuffled into the kitchen. “Good morning, Nabiki, you’re up early. The coffee will be ready in a minute,” she said brightly, before turning back to her work. She quickly surveyed the makings for miso soup a second time to make sure she hadn’t prepared breakfast for six _again_. She hated to throw food away, and with Ranma and Genma gone there wasn’t anyone to vacuum up whatever everyone else didn’t want.

As she continued her work she allowed her hands to guide themselves through their long-familiar task as she kept an eye on her sister. Nabiki was slouched against the kitchen counter, waiting patiently for the coffee to finish brewing. That patience was not normal, not for Nabiki — the middle Tendo had always wanted what she wanted _right now!_ And so when she had to wait for _anything_ she would fidget, and mutter, and tap things with her fingernails, anything to let those around her know that she wasn’t happy. But now not only was she perfectly still, but her eyes were roaming the kitchen as if she were trying to memorize every scratch and stain (most of those legacies of Akane’s attempts to cook).

Kasumi struggled with herself for a moment. She preferred to be an observer and silent supporter rather than an active participant in the chaos that swirled through the district, and the latest events surrounding Ranma and Akane had pulled her far out of her comfort zone. But her little sister’s breakdown and departure had also taught her the price of staying within that comfortable isolation, and that in Kasumi’s own way she had been as bad as her father. So now she forced herself to ask, “Nabiki, what’s wrong? Has ... has something happened to Ranma?”

“What? No, not as far as I can tell. There was some sort of fight in Hudson City and Manning-san — the woman Ranma saved when Genma died — was rescued. The news reports aren’t saying yet who died during her rescue, but they _are_ saying that they are ‘a Japanese businessman and his employees’.” Nabiki smiled viciously. “Translate that as ‘oyabun and his thugs’ and you’ll be closer to the truth, I think, and that _definitely_ doesn’t describe Ranma — a brainless jock sometimes, but never a thug.”

“Is it Akane then?” Kasumi couldn’t imagine how that could be, not after Akane was diverted to Millennium City, on the Champions’ own jet! But she couldn’t think of anything else that could be a problem.

“No, I haven’t heard anything more about Akane but I imagine she’s fine.” Nabiki hesitated, then straightened, taking a deep breath. “Kasumi, we’re going to have to leave — all of us. I think we’ll have to sell the house.”

“ _What!?_ ” Kasumi whirled to face her sister, unmindful of the clatter of the knife she’d been using on the fish hitting the floor. “Leave? Sell our home? But _why?_ ”

“Because of Kuno.” Nabiki shifted her gaze to look out over Kasumi’s shoulder through the window at the light of the early morning sunrise. “Just before coming down I got an email from Zodiac. He says that that nutcase will be free in a few days, and you _know_ he’ll come after us when he does, demanding that his ‘loves’ be returned to him.” Her mouth twisted as if she wanted to spit but she swallowed instead, and Kasumi found herself having to fight back the urge to giggle. _Not in_ my _kitchen!_ But the moment of amusement vanished as Nabiki continued: “It’s best if we’re gone before he’s free, or things will get uglier than they already are. We won’t have Ranma and Genma here to protect us, after all, and Dad is badly out of practice. And Zodiac says that the Super Squad’s minders are leery of the team guarding us personally after a judge rules that Kuno isn’t really a threat to the public. Sure, we could set up a hotline to alert them if he comes after us, but it would take them time to get here — a quarter hour at best, probably, assuming they aren’t on a mission somewhere. By that time we could all be dead. There’s no way his lawyers could save Kuno from the repercussions, however good they are or how much influence his father has, but that wouldn’t do _us_ much good.”

“I ... okay, that makes sense, but ... sell our home? We grew up here, Mother _died_ here! Please, there has to be a way to avoid that!”

But Nabiki was shaking her head. “Kasumi, we’re going to be starting over in a new location on short notice, we’ll need all the money we can get. Besides, even if we didn’t need the money ... I’m thinking we should join Ranma and Akane. If we do, we can’t have any links here. Even paying the property taxes could leave a trail that Kuno’s people could follow back to us. You remember what Ranma told us about his new curse, we have to keep him away from Kuno at all costs.”

Kasumi stared at her sister, mind blank as she tried to make sense of what had happened to her world. She didn’t realize that the dampness on her cheeks were her tears until Nabiki sighed, and stepped forward to pull her into a hesitant hug. “I’m sorry, big sis,” she murmured as Kasumi finally broke down.

/\

Throughout the rest of that long day, as Kasumi broke the news to their father over breakfast and had to deal with his wailing breakdown, then began the heartbreaking task of packing what they absolutely needed right away and boxing up what could wait (Nabiki was sure the Tokyo Super Squad would be willing to store their effects until they had a place to discreetly send them), as she found herself imitating her sister in trying to memorize every nick and scratch, stain and hole that a lived-in residence picks up (especially the last, for anywhere that Akane and Ranma lived), there was one ray of light in the darkness threatening to roll over her — Nabiki had actually _hugged_ her, had tried to _comfort_ her — she hadn’t been very good at it, but she’d _tried_. Kasumi might be losing the only home she’d ever known, but she also might finally be getting back her sister. On reflection, that wasn’t a bad trade at all.

/oOo\

DarkAngel stared out over the nighttime Hudson City from her perch on the edge of the roof. Her cape was tucked around her, but her need was more psychological than physical — her costume’s insulation could handle the chill of a New Jersey winter night without a problem, but it didn’t help with the memory of the news reports of the corpses of two young women the police had found when they searched the Sawakiri-gumi headquarters. None of the vigilantes had been close to the part of the mansion where the corpses had been found so they’d had no chance to prevent the murders, but if there’d been no raid the women would probably have still been alive — a fairly short and horrible life as prostitutes in Japan, from what the Stanson sisters had reported before their murders, but alive.

The sound of footsteps in the loose rooftop debris from behind her alerted her to the approach of Sergeant Amado, and a few moments later he was swinging his legs over the edge of the roof to sit beside her. The two sat in silence for a few minutes, until DarkAngel finally asked, “How are the girls?”

“You haven’t been watching the news?”

DarkAngel shrugged. “Sure, but that just tells me what they want me to know. How are they really?”

“Well, this time the newsies got it right,” Sergeant Amado replied. “I imagine they’re going to spend a lot of time talking to psychiatrists, but physically they’ll be fine — just the in-and-out gunshot to the leg for Jacky and a scratched arm for Moira.”

“I’m glad.” After a few more minutes of silence, DarkAngel said, “As good as it is to see you again, I don’t imagine you asked for a meeting out of the pleasure of my company. Not as busy as you must be right now. What’s up?”

Sergeant Amado leaned back to brace himself up on his back-stretched arms. “How’s Bluejay?”

“She’s alive, if dopey with painkillers,” DarkAngel replied. “Her broken arm is simple enough, but her shoulder’s a nightmare — no way any doctor she can get to without going to jail can put that back together. No doctors here, anyway, so she’s going to be taking a long foreign vacation.”

“Japan, I take it?” When DarkAngel glanced over at him, Sergeant Amado continued, “Chrysanthemum paid me a visit before the raid. How did you think she was able to find you?”

“She told me,” DarkAngel said, voice harsh.

Sergeant Amado’s eyebrows rose at the unusually abrupt response — and the tone didn’t seem to fit the subject matter. He asked, “So, Bluejay isn’t likely to face any legal difficulties for the two men she killed — the fact that the men had been shooting at Jacky and Moira, the way she killed them and the damage Jacky and Moira have said she took in the process will see to that. Do you think Bluejay will end up on the Tokyo Super Squad once she’s recovered?”

DarkAngel barked a surprised laugh at the thought. “Bluejay? Not likely! She likes the high life too much to get by on what they’d be willing to pay her, and she’s not the type to put her life on the line. On the other hand,” she added thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t have thought she’d have done what she did so I suppose anything is possible. Still, I’m just happy she’ll be all right.” She smiled at the thought of her brief visit with her friendly enemy a few days before. Though spacey and only half-coherent from the painkillers and practically strapped down to the bed to keep her from moving her shoulder, Linda had been cheerful, talking of all the places in Japan she would visit after her shoulder healed enough to get around.

Then DarkAngel’s thoughts fell back into the rut they’d been in before Sergeant Amado arrived, and her mood darkened again. She said, “Certainly better off than the other two girls you found.”

Ah, so _that_ was it. Sergeant Amado said, “You know, Jacky was in that mansion for months, she’s been giving us quite a list of names and descriptions of girls that passed through the mansion before being shipped on to Japan. Now that the Japanese know which collection of yakuza thugs to blame for the Stanson sisters’ assassination at the US embassy, they’re going to come down on them like the wrath of God. But I don’t expect many of those girls will be found alive, or at all. Still, any that we _do_ get back will be because of the opportunity you gave Jacky. Yes, those two girls died because of your raid, but if it had been SWAT instead it would be five corpses instead of two, no way we would have been able to get in fast enough, sow enough confusion as you did, to give Deborah, Jacky and Moira the chances they needed to escape. And that’s assuming we would have moved before they were shipped out, which I doubt — not as hot as the whole situation was making things. And if it hadn’t been for you and Bluejay I wouldn’t have been looking that way at all, not seriously — no reason to. It’s possible things would have quieted down for lack of leads and the whole sex slavery pipeline would have stayed open. No, you did good.”

For a moment he thought she was going to reject what he’d said, but she finally relaxed, shoulders slumping. “I know,” she agreed, “it’s just ...”

“It’s just you’d rather there were no bodies in the morgue at all, I know,” he finished. “Of course, in a perfect world you wouldn’t be needed, and neither would I.” He straightened. “But I didn’t call you here to ask about Bluejay, or tell you about the girls. I’ve noticed that when one of your cases involves dead civilians you take a little vacation, after. Were you intending to this time, as well?”

“Yeeessss,” DarkAngel replied slowly, “I am. And not just to recover, I have some personal issues to deal with. Is there a problem with that?”

“Not at all,” he assured her. “In fact, you should extend your vacation.”

DarkAngel stiffened. “Why?” she demanded, voice hard.

Sergeant Amado sighed, leaning forward and staring across the city. “Because there’s a problem with Nakamura’s murder scene,” he said. “We can’t find the gun that killed him, and the only people that we know of that left the crime scene are you and Deborah. That doesn’t mean that someone else wasn’t there, but we can’t find any evidence that there was.” He glanced over at the now stiff woman beside him. “Deborah killed him, didn’t she?”

DarkAngel’s mind raced over her options, but her decision was easy — she trusted the career cop, and not just because he was honest. Since her first encounter with the sergeant after her rape, she had known that even after years on the force he still _cared_. “Yes,” she replied. “How did you know?”

“Her hands and arms were too clean,” he said. “Better than gunpowder residue, but still a red flag. We aren’t going to find the gun, are we?”

Now DarkAngel paused — _this_ was pushing the limits a bit. Still ... Hesitantly, she answered, “No ... you won’t.”

“I didn’t think so.” Sergeant Amado rubbed at his face. “Stacy, you stepped over the line,” he said quietly. “I understand why. It’s a tremendous temptation that any career investigator is going to face sooner or later, when the evidence clearly implicates someone whose situation is so godawful that the thought of dumping them into the legal system is unbearable. It’s so easy to make it all go away with some lost evidence — tainted, mislabeled, misfiled, stored in the wrong location, simply gone. But you can’t do this again.”

DarkAngel froze as the sergeant used her actual name, answering her speculations on whether he knew who she was, then sagged in relief as he finished — he wasn’t shutting her down, not yet. But his unspoken message was clear: _If I need to shut you down, I can_. Not without risking his own career, perhaps even jail time, but he could do it. “How much trouble am I in?” she asked in a small voice.

Sergeant Amado let the moment stretch out, then answered, “Not much. Everyone investigating the case knows what the deal is, and while they might not have done what you did they will be willing to play along now that it’s a done deal. We still have weeks of investigating to do, but the report is going to conclude that the evidence doesn’t single out any particular shooter. But if we don’t pin it on Deborah, we have to leave open the possibility that _you_ shot him instead and that isn’t going to go away. If you have any legal trouble down the line, you’ll find this getting dragged into it even if only by implication.”

He rose to his feet and stretched, then offered the vigilante a hand up. “Go home, Stacy,” he said softly. “Take your break, put the deaths behind you, get Ranma settled in and trained some more on watching out for bystanders — while Kumon said that he was the one that brought down part of the mansion, not ‘Cherub’, your new partner didn’t try to prevent it, maybe even encouraged it, and it’s a special miracle that no one was injured but Kumon. Hell, help Bluejay get out of the country, if you need to. And let the fallout settle a bit. You aren’t the only one protecting Hudson City, we can do without you for awhile. Not that there won’t be plenty for you to do when you and ‘Cherub’ come back.”

DarkAngel nodded and shook out her cape. “Good advice, George, I think I’ll take it. See you around.”

“See you around.” He watched, smiling, as the blonde vigilante dove off the side of the building, her swingline shooting out to the building across the street, and with her arcing swing her dark costume quickly merged with the night’s shadows in a cross-street alley and she was gone.

/oOo\

As the passenger jet came in for the landing, Akane stared out her window at the city that was going to be her new home. At least, what she could see of it — a storm front had just moved through and the clouds were still clearing. Unlike the bright, sunny (if chilly) day it had been when Defender and Witchcraft smuggled her into the Wayne County Metropolitan Airport — Millennium City’s main air hub — the youngest Tendo found the current dim gray light and snow flurries a much better fit for her mood.

 _Come on, girl, perk up — it’s_ Ranma _. You’ve only been obsessing about him since you learned about the attack in the park!_

She tried, really she did. It shouldn’t have been all that hard — in spite of her hosts’ attempts to distract her during the days she had been the guest of America’s premier superhero team, Ranma and the situation he had found himself in (or _she_ had found _herself_ in, it seemed) had never been far from Akane’s thoughts. How _dare_ that idiot get himself into serious trouble without her there to help out!

Word that the excitement in Hudson City was over and she only had to wait for the media to let Ranma and his new guardian again sink into obscurity in order to resume her journey had actually allowed her to relax and enjoy herself and play the tourist. Millennium City was one of the world’s modern marvels, after all, built on the rubble of Detroit after the fight with Dr. Destroyer destroyed most of the city in 1992. (Too bad it didn’t actually kill him, too, like everyone had thought at the time.) The “Smart Roadway” system inside the Loop alone was talked about all over the world — though not all of the talk was positive, the Civil Libertarians found the vehicle tracking system deeply disturbing. Not in Japan, though, _there_ all the talk was about how to emulate it without having to shut down entire cities while the roads were completely torn up and rebuilt — and especially how to _pay_ for it.

The tourist act had lasted for less than a day, until the forwarded email from Kasumi of the latest development in Nerima, that not only was she not going to be going home anytime soon, but likely wasn’t going to have a home to return to. With that, all eagerness to rejoin her fiancé had vanished in a world gone black.

“Miss? Miss? Excuse me, Miss, it’s time to debark.”

Akane jerked at the light touch on her shoulder and twisted around to look up into the concerned eyes of a cute flight attendant not too many years older than her with hair the same shade as Ranma’s, then looked past her. Akane couldn’t see much, what with the high backs of the passenger seats, but the plane was oddly silent after hours of the background noise of all those people in an enclosed space. She had gotten so lost in her thoughts that the plane had landed and everyone else had debarked, and she hadn’t noticed.

“Are you all right, Miss? Is there anything I can do for you?” the flight attendant asked, and Akane forced a smile.

“No. I fine. I just thought filled.” She winced, blushing at her English, and again reminded herself that she owed Shampoo an apology. Her stay with the Champions — none of whom spoke Japanese — along with the hours she had spent haunting the news channels had done wonders for her English comprehension but little for her ability to _speak_ it.

The flight attendant looked doubtful, but she just said, “Well, whoever is waiting for you is probably wondering where you are. You’d better hurry.”

“Right!” Akane scrambled out of her seat and pulled her carry-on out of the overhead bin and hurried for the exit.

It was the work of a few minutes to get off the plane and out of the boarding area, and she looked around the crowded concourse for that familiar face. Not that she was expecting it to be easy — everyone here was too tall!

{Hey, Tomboy! Over here!}

Akane turned to see a familiar redheaded girl next to taller woman with short blond hair and a little earth-haired girl. The next thing she knew she was slamming into her fiancé, knocking her back a step as Akane’s arms circled her. {Ranma, I want to go home!} she wailed.

Hesitantly, Ranma returned her tight embrace, awkwardly patting her on the back. {I know, Akane, me, too. I guess we’ll just hafta make a new one.} It took long minutes for Akane to calm down enough to realize she was making a scene and pull away, blushing furiously.

“Here.” The older woman handed Akane a tissue, and when she looked at it in confusion added, “For the tear tracks.”

“Oh.” Her blush actually intensifying, Akane hastily wiped at her damp cheeks and eyes.

“Yeah, uh, Akane, this is Hunter Stacy, uh, Stacy Hunter, my new guardian and Kat’s mother. We’ll be staying with her,” Ranma said hastily, switching to English. “Stacy, Akane, my fian — ah ... friend. And the kid is ....” Ranma looked around. “Kat? Kat! Where are you?”

“Here!”

Akane jumped at the sound of the little girl’s voice right behind her, and turned to find Kat struggling to lift her carry-on. “Here, you dropped this,” the girl said.

Akane reached down to relieve her of her burden. You strong,” she said, trying for a lighthearted tone.

“Nu-uh,” Kat disagreed, “but I will be! Neechan’s training me!” she peered up at the newcomer. “Are you Neechan’s girlfriend?”

“Uh ... I her friend and I girl, so yes.”

Kat frowned. “No, I mean, are you her _girl_ friend, like my friend Olivia’s two mommies?”

“Why you think so?” Akane asked, trying to ignore the fresh heat in her cheeks. She glanced sideways to find Ranma blushing as red as her hair while Stacy’s face had the tight look of someone trying desperately not to laugh.

“Because she goes all gooey-eyed when she talks about you, just like Daddy and Mamma Jenny,” Kat said. “It looks icky, but Mamma Jenny says I’ll be like that too, when I grow up. Yuck!” She made a face, and then glared at her mother when Stacy finally lost control of her laughter, before looking up at Akane again. “So, are you?”

Akane opened her mouth to hotly deny she was any such thing, only to pause as her brain caught up with her mouth. Genma wasn’t going to be around with his “manliness” crap. From what Kasumi’s emails had said, Ranma was going to be spending most of his time in girl form. Akane was hoping to go to the same school as Ranma. She was going to be making new friends. And while her protestations that she and Ranma were barely even friends might have fooled most people most of the time, she had never been able to convince Yuka and Sayuri, not really — at most they had played along. True, they had known her all her life, but still ... _Gooey-eyed?_

She crouched down in front of Kat. “Yes, I be girlfriend of Ranma,” she said, then glanced up as Ranma made a choking sound, and grinned at the stunned expression on the redhead’s face before turning back to Kat. “But you no tell people, some not understand.”

“Your English isn’t very good, is it? Better than my Japanese, though. Neechan’s teaching me that, too,” Kat announced, then nodded. “But yeah, I know — Olivia used to get teased about her mothers by some of the boys, until I made them stop.”

Stacy stopped laughing to look down sternly at her daughter. “Is that the fight Mamma Jenny was called to the school for?”

“Uh ...” Kat’s eyes fell to examine the toes of her boots before perking up. “Hey, Neechan said that after we picked up Akane we can get ice cream, so let’s go!” And with that she charged toward the exit.

“Kat, you get back here!” Stacy yelled, charging after her daughter.

Akane laughed as she jogged after the two, Ranma beside her. {Ice cream? She’s your sister, all right,} she commented to the redhead. And Kat was — she may have been a brunette, but once one looked beyond that the resemblance was unmistakable. So was the attitude. Then Akane grinned. {Gooey-eyed?} she asked, and laughed again as a sidelong glance showed Ranma blushing furiously ... again. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that’s that, this story’s put to bed. There’s plenty of room for a sequel, of course: Kumon wants a rematch, to find out if Ranma knows about the Umisenken or can lead him to it; the rest of the Tendos will be arriving and everyone settling in; Ranma’s mother has yet to arrive on the scene; some of the other usual suspects in Nerima will be wondering where Ranma and the Tendos went to; Kuno will hunting them; Ryoga hasn’t shown up in Hudson City yet; and that’s just the Ranma side of things, DarkAngel has her own cast of villains and murderous vigilantes to fight. Still, I doubt I’ll ever write that sequel. This hasn’t been exactly one of my most popular stories, and there are any number of other stories I’d like to write. I suppose this could be considered up for adoption by anyone that wants to write a sequel instead, not that I think anyone needs my permission to write one anymore than we need Takahashi’s permission to write these fanfics in the first place.
> 
> For what’s next, I’ll be writing the first chapter in the next story arc of _The Raven_! It’ll be a bit longer than usual before I post it, though — I’m three days ahead of schedule for the word count on this chapter (Calliope was practically breaking down my door and demanding I write!), and I’ll be using those days for catching my breath and reviewing the relevant _Teen Titans_ episodes.
> 
> The chapter title comes from the song from the play _Fiddler on the Roof_ , after the Jews in a small town in Russia have been told that they all have to pack up and leave the country. Though Kasumi and Akane are a bit more upbeat in the end. 
> 
> A little bit of this, a little bit of that.  
> A pot, a pan, a broom, a hat. 
> 
> Someone should have set a match to this place years ago.  
> A bench, a tree.  
> So, what's a stove? Or a house?  
> People who pass through Anatevka don't even know they've been here.  
> A stick of wood. A piece of cloth. 
> 
> What do we leave? Nothing much.  
> Only Anatevka. 
> 
> Anatevka, Anatevka.  
> Underfed, overworked Anatevka.  
> Where else could Sabbath be so sweet?  
> Anatevka, Anatevka.  
> Intimate, obstinate Anatevka,  
> Where I know everyone I meet. 
> 
> Soon I'll be a stranger in a strange new place,  
> Searching for an old familiar face  
> From Anatevka. 
> 
> I belong in Anatevka,  
> Tumble-down, work-a-day Anatevka.  
> Dear little village, little town of mine.
> 
>  


End file.
